Iran's REAL Easter gift

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Less than 24 hours earlier, Iran's President Ahmadinejad had magnanimously freed 15 hostages as an Easter 'gift' to Britain.

Yesterday the grim reality behind his propaganda coup was bloodily exposed - along with his regime's true feelings towards our servicemen and women.

Four soldiers, two of them women, died when a huge Iranian-made bomb hit their patrol in Iraq. The blast exposed Ahmadinejad's conciliatory words as callous hypocrisy.

As the 15 sailors and Marines, including Leading Seaman Faye Turney, prepared to board their plane home from Tehran, Iraqis were dancing around a 3ft crater in the road near Basra, brandishing grisly ' souvenirs' including a soldier's helmet.

All the soldiers who died were in a Warrior armoured vehicle shattered by a devastating explosion. One of the women was from the Royal Army Medical Corps, the other from the Intelligence Corps.

A Jordanian interpreter was also killed and a fifth soldier was fighting for his life last night.

Tony Blair stopped short of directly pinning the deaths on Iran, but accused the Tehran regime of "financing, arming and supporting" attacks on UK forces.

Britain and America have repeatedly blamed Iran for supplying the special armour-piercing bombs and triggering mechanisms used by Iraqi insurgents.

Mr Blair said: "Just as we rejoice at the return of the 15, so we are also grieving and mourning the loss of our soldiers in Basra.

'On the one hand we are glad that our service personnel are returned from their captivity. But on the other we return to the sober and ugly reality of what is happening through terrorism in Iraq."

For both the Government and the hostages' families, yesterday had been full of promise.

But news of the Basra deaths - six British soldiers have now been killed in six days - quickly overshadowed the joy of the captives' return.

It also emerged that some of the captives may have been held in solitary confinemtne by the Iranians, Marines' spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Andy Price.

He said: "There were times when they were left alone, but we will not go into any further detail until tomorrow."

The 15 personnel from HMS Cornwall touched down at Heathrow - they swopped their shiny, Iranian suits for fresh uniforms on the British Airways plane - carrying bizarre 'goodie bags' from Ahmadinejad containing CDs, pistachio nuts and sweets.

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