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There are reports of another brutal crackdown in Iran, with websites, internet bloggers and eyewitnesses all talking of a bloodbath in Tehran.

The reports suggest thousands of police and pro-government militia have used firearms, clubs and teargas to suppress another opposition rally.

There is even one account of a nine-year-old girl being shot.

Iran's ongoing ban on all foreign media makes it impossible to verify many of the accounts but amateur videos posted last night on YouTube appear to show there were fierce clashes between supporters of Iran's opposition and the security forces.

Hundreds of protesters had headed to Tehran's Baharestan Square for another street rally against Iran's presidential election result.

The first reports of what went on there have been broadcast on CNN and Al Jazeera television.

One eyewitness reported riot police beating people, "even police beating women".

Internet accounts too give a chilling picture of the extent of the violence. It is impossible to verify every entry on the microblogging site Twitter.

But some of the tweeters who have shown themselves to be reliable - including foreign reporters with good contacts in Tehran - have posted the following messages in the past 12 hours.

"Lots of reports of heavy gunfire and clashes in Baharestan. One guy is calling it a massacre," one says.

"We heard the women are being beaten so badly they have to amputate their limbs," another says.

"We saw militia with axe chopping people like meat - blood everywhere - like butcher."

'Acts of terror'

And there was this:

"The most disturbing are reports of a nine-year-old girl being shot @ Baharestan and the basij [militia] won't let people near her to help."

The website of Iran's main opposition candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, gives some weight to the other accounts.

"Many people have been beaten and injured at the protests across Tehran today," the website says.

"At Baharestan the police were waiting inside local mosques for the protesters to arrive. At this point many would consider the actions of the basij and police as acts of terror.

"This is amazing that even in the year 2009 such primitive policing still exists."

Much of the protesters' anger has been directed at Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who they describe as a dictator.

But earlier in the day he too appeared in the media on a government-backed TV station to declare Iran would not bow to the opposition demands for a new election.

"I insist on enforcing the rule of law," the Ayatollah said.

"We will only accept the law of the Islamic Republic. Surely our system and our people will not yield to pressure."

And through all this, the man at the centre of the crisis, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has shown no hint of awareness or care about the protests against him.

Iranian television showed him hosting a bilateral delegation from Belarus, smiling and chatting as if there had never been any election at all.