TEHRAN -- Iranian intelligence forces have disbanded a sabotage team affiliated with the terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) in the country’s northern province of Mazandaran over involvement in foreign-backed riots that broke out in mid-September last year.
The commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in Babolsar, Mostafa Bazvand, made the announcement on Monday, saying the team was operating in the northern Iranian city with the aim of deceiving young people.
Bazvand added that the ringleaders of the team were in direct contact with foreign-based groups and were involved in acts of sabotage and terrorist attacks.
Ever since the unrest erupted in the country, the team fed anti-Iran Persian-language television networks based in the United States and Britain with video footage and other materials, and deceived the youth, the IRGC commander noted.
The terrorists were detained by Iranian intelligence units, and their social media accounts were suspended.
Iran has also arrested members of a network, comprising elements with records of links to Marxist counter-revolutionary groups, the MKO, and French spies, Fars news agency reported.
All of the detainees, it said, had previously been arrested and released under pardons issued by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
The detainees had converged to design and coordinate stoking tensions in workers’ and teachers’ gatherings and leading them to nationwide strikes, as well as bringing up again the fake poisoning projects at schools, the report added.
Maryam Assadollahi (nicknamed Anisha) and Reyhaneh Ansari were among those arrested. They were taken into custody last year for their connection and cooperation with two French spies.
The French spies had entered the country last year prior to Workers’ and Teachers’ Day in order to organize riots and provide money to their agents. They were arrested by Iranian intelligence forces after they were identified and watched for a while to identify their domestic affiliates.
The detainees had gathered at the house of a former ringleader of an illegal self-proclaimed trade union. Guided by foreign elements, the meeting was held under the guise of visiting prisoners’ families.
Riots broke out in Iran in mid-September last year when 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini died in a hospital in the capital Tehran, three days after she collapsed at a police station. An investigation later attributed Amini’s death to her pre-existing medical condition, rather than alleged beatings by the police.
The MKO has carried out numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials over the past three decades. Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks since the victory of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, about 12,000 have fallen victim to the acts of terror carried out by the MKO.
The group was viewed by the EU as a terrorist organization until January 2009, when the EU Council lifted the designation under immense pressure from political lobbies. The decision was followed by the United States in September 2012.