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(Reuters) - Iranian authorities shut down a reformist newspaper on Sunday after it published a scathing attack by an aide to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the president's rival conservatives, the latest sign of a split in the highest echelons of the Islamic Republic.

The aide, media adviser Ali Akbar Javanfekr, was also sentenced to a year in jail and banned from journalism over a separate publication which was deemed to have offended public decency, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

Both incidents spotlighted a feud between Ahmadinejad's camp and others in the conservative establishment that runs the world's fifth biggest oil exporter and faces increasing international pressure over its nuclear activities.

Tehran's prosecutor's office ordered the daily Etemad to close for two months for "disseminating lies and insults to officials in the establishment," according to Fars.