Iranian state television has reported shots being fired at a mass rally in Tehran, where thousands of people are protesting the result of last week's election.

The opposition protests came as Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, ordered an inquiry into the presidential election, which has been overshadowed by opposition accusations that the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad rigged the results to secure re-election. However, given that Mr Khamenei had already congratulated the president on his supposed victory opposition, supporters dismissed the call as a sop to soften their anger.

“There has been sporadic shooting out there ... I can see people running here,” a reporter of Iran's English-language Press TV said in a live call from the scene.