TEHERAN - IRAN appears to be intensifying its crackdown on opposition protesters ahead of today's official verdict on the disputed election result, with militiamen reportedly seizing injured demonstrators from hospitals.

Iran's semi-official Fars news agency also reported on Sunday that eight local members of the British Embassy's staff had been arrested for playing a 'considerable role' in the riots over the country's disputed presidential election.

The move appeared to be part of attempts by the hardline leadership to blame post-election unrest on foreign powers, not popular anger and disbelief in official results showing hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won re-election by a landslide in June 12 polls.

The news of the arrests, which British Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned as 'harassment' and 'intimidation', came as CNN quoted Amnesty International as saying members of the Basij Islamic militia were waiting at hospitals and taking injured protesters away.

Ms Banafsheh Akhlaghi, western regional director of the human rights group, said it had collected accounts from people who have left Iran and expatriates with relatives there who say the government's paramilitary wing has been stopping hospital staff from taking identification information from wounded demonstrators who check in.

And she said that once the patients have been treated, the Basij remove them to an undisclosed location.

One woman, who has since fled to the United States and spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for her safety, told CNN that she broke an ankle and a thumb during a demonstration, but had a doctor come to treat her as she was too afraid to risk being seized by the militiamen if she went to hospital. A friend who travelled with her said: 'The point is, when they are being taken to the hospital they don't actually get there.'

More than 2,000 people are still in detention and hundreds more are missing since the government crackdown began, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said on Sunday.

Advocacy group Human Rights Watch says the Basij are also waging a campaign of violence and intimidation in Teheran's residential districts, invading private homes and beating residents in an attempt to stop protests against the disputed election.

The Guardian Council, Iran's top legislative body, is to give its final verdict on the election by today, but appears highly unlikely to bow to protesters' demands for a rerun of the election. -- AFP, REUTERS

Please read the full story in Monday's edition of The Straits Times.