TEHRAN (Dispatches) – Iran’s intelligence forces smashed three terrorist teams in two provinces, arresting the perpetrators of an explosion that killed one person in the southeastern city of Saravan on March 21, the Intelligence Ministry said Sunday.
They were targeted teams in the southeastern province of Sistan and Balouchestan and northwestern province of West Azarbaijan, it said, adding the elements behind the March 21 blast in Saravan have also been arrested.
The explosion, which killed a 16-year-old boy and injured a number of passersby in Saravan, was perpetrated by a team affiliated with the so-called Jaish al-Adl terrorist group, the ministry said.
The team had received training in a foreign country and carried out the attack under guidance of Jaish al-Adl terror group, the statement said, adding that a handgun and 60 kilograms of explosives with remote control circuit and primer have been confiscated in the operation.
The statement said the capture of members of another team of terrorists in Sistan and Balouchestan prevented a series of potential terrorist attacks, since they had been given directions from a European-based criminal terrorist group to carry out attacks across the province and conduct brutal bomb blasts at religious sites in order to foment religious divisions.
The leader of the terrorist team, who has a criminal record of drug trafficking and homicide, has been arrested with two handguns, two AK-47 rifles, and tools and material for making bombs, it added.
According to the statement, the intelligence forces have also smashed an armed group that had entered Iran from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq for extortion and terrorist activities.
After an armed clash in a border area near Urmia, two intruders were killed and another fled, the ministry added, noting that two AK-47 guns, grenades, ammunition and explosives have been impounded in the operation.
The Intelligence Ministry warned the countries that have become a safe haven for the terrorist groups that they must be held accountable for their terrorist activities.
Iranian intelligence forces in late April arrested 10 takfiri and anti-revolutionary terrorists affiliated to foreign spy services in the southeastern city of Kerman.
Kerman Province’s Prosecutor Dadkhoda Salari told reporters that the terrorists were attempting to carry out acts of terror and harassment, create insecurity through violent measure, but were identified by Iranian intelligence forces.