TEHRAN - Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has arrested members of a spying network who were engaged in a project run by a foreign spy agency to extract information about the Iranians travelling abroad.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the ministry said that the spy agency had been monitoring the Iranians with responsibility in different positions or special expertise in various fields as well as those who have access to important information in the country’s sensitive institutions.
The ministry noted that its measures led to the identification of the network’s “liaisons and executive agents” in several Iranian organizations and institutions.
The foreign spy agency told one of its spies the names of its targets among the Iranians traveling abroad, the statement read. The spy gave the names to its liaisons until they reached the operators of administrative systems in several organizations.
The operators used their database and extracted the information of the targets and delivered them to the liaisons, it added.
The liaisons transferred the information to the network’s ringleader who delivered them to the spying agency.
On Tuesday, spokesman for the Iranian Judiciary Masoud Setayeshi said that the country has arrested four individuals suspected of being linked to the Jaish al-Adl terrorist group in the country’s southeast.
Setayeshi said that the four had been arrested in Saravan County, in Siastan and Baluchestan Province, for possessing and carrying firearms, acquiring stolen property, complicity in homicide, and membership in and support for the Jaish al-Adl terrorist group.
They were arraigned and remanded in custody, Setayeshi said.
On Saturday, five Iranian border guards were killed in a terrorist attack in Saravan, on the border with Pakistan.
It was not clear who was responsible for that attack, or whether the four individuals arrested on Tuesday were linked to it.
Setayeshi did not name the arrestees.
Iranian parliament (Majlis) is to dispatch a delegation to the southeastern city of Saravan to investigate into a recent terrorist attack that killed five Iranian border guards at the joint border with Pakistan, a lawmaker has said.
Shahriar Heidari, a member of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said that a delegation consisting of the Committee members is scheduled to travel to Saravan to investigate the incident that happened late on Saturday in order to make necessary decisions about the case.
Heidari said the Islamic Republic has repeatedly told Islamabad that Iran is ready to ensure security even across the joint border if Pakistan is unable to prevent such terrorist measures.
The legislator, however, reiterated Iran’s respect for Pakistan’s territorial integrity, adding that both sides are two neighboring countries whose governments believe in the establishment of security along their borders.