TEHRAN -- Iranian security forces have captured seven terrorists linked to Kurdish separatist groups in western Ilam Province, seizing a cache of weapons in the latest blow to a U.S.-Israeli plot to tear Iran apart through armed insurrection and civil war.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) announced on Thursday that the seven-member terrorist cell was identified and dismantled through intelligence operations in Ilam Province. 
The group had obtained firearms — including Kalashnikov rifles, handguns and ammunition — with financial backing from a foreign-based coordinator and was preparing to carry out terrorist operations in cities across western Iran.
The captures come as Iran mourns yet another soldier martyred defending the nation’s western borders.
On Friday, Sergeant First Class Reza Daraei Emarati was martyred in an armed clash with a terrorist group near the Kurdish city of Paveh in Kermanshah province, close to the border with Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. 
Kermanshah border commander Brigadier General Kiasat Sepehri confirmed that border guards encountered the group while patrolling the frontier in the early hours of Friday. The guards repelled the attack and prevented the terrorists from entering Iranian territory.
The martyrdom comes just days after another soldier, Mehrdad Taheri Arpanahi, was martyred during similar clashes with opposition groups in Paveh in late August. 
In June, two IRGC members were martyred and two others wounded in a terrorist shooting in Paveh County, authorities said at the time.
On April 5, U.S. President Donald Trump admitted in a Fox