Tehran - Tehran said Tuesday it had no knowledge of an Iranian pilotless plane reportedly being shot down by the US military over Iraq.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi told reporters in Tehran that he was unaware of the "vague report" on the drone that the US claimed to have shot down last month.

A US military spokesman in Baghdad said Monday that US planes destroyed an Iranian drone that had wandered deep into Iraqi airspace.

Tehran  - Opposition groups in Iran have many differences among each other but are unanimous on one issue: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should go.

Many observers believed that the strategy by the opposition for the June 12 presidential election would be focused on Ahmadinejad's foreign policy, such as his uncompromising stance in the nuclear dispute that has led the country toward international isolation.

Tehran - Iranian former president Mohammad Khatami quit the presidential race on Monday night to support former prime minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi in the June 12 election.

The two candidates had similar platforms, and observers believed they could split the moderate vote to the advantage of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose ultra-conservative faction has named him as its sole candidate.

In a statement carried by his website, Yaari News, Khatami said he withdrew his candidacy "as a moral obligation for avoiding a split in the votes."

Tehran  - Iranian former prime minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi has been away from the political scene for two decades, but now the pragmatic technocrat is back to challenge Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12 presidential election.

Former president Mohammad Khatami threw his support behind Moussavi on Monday after quitting the race to avoid splitting the vote between two candidates with similar platforms.

Moussavi, born in 1941 in Khameneh, north-eastern Iran, started his political career as foreign minister in 1980, the same year that the Iran-Iraq war broke out.

Tehran  - Iranian former president Mohammad Khatami quit the presidential race on Monday night to support former prime minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi in the June 12 election.

The two candidates had similar platforms, and observers believed they could split the moderate vote to the advantage of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose ultra-conservative faction has named him as its sole candidate.

In a statement carried by his website Yaari News, Khatami said he withdrew his candidacy "as a moral obligation for avoiding a split in the votes."

Tehran