TEHRAN -- A court in the
Netherlands has sentenced an Iranian refugee to four years in prison after he was convicted of preparing and financing terror attacks in the Islamic Republic.
In a statement, the Rotterdam District Court said the 42-year-old man was linked to the so-called Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz terrorist group (SMLA).
The defendant was in contact with separatist militants who planned and carried out terror attacks in Iran, including torching banks and targeting people linked to the Iranian government, the court added.
He also discussed possible targets, offered financial support and urged terrorists to make video recordings of their attacks.
The court further said that the defendant, through his actions, “played an important role in a criminal and terrorist organization whose goal was to support attacks in Iran.”
The SMLA has been after separating the southwestern province of Khuzestan — home to the country’s Arab population — from the rest of Iran through engaging in armed conflict against the Iranian government.
In September 2018, it claimed responsibility for the attack on military parade in Ahvaz, Khuzestan’s provincial capital. The assault killed 25 people, including members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and civilian bystanders, and injured 70 others.
The terror outfit is directly supported by the intelligence agencies of Saudi Arabia and the occupying regime of Israel.
SMLA ringleader Farajollah Chaab, also known as Habib Asyud, was arrested in November 2020 on the back of a set of “specialized and combined measures” by Iranian intelligence forces.
In his confessions, Chaab admitted to cooperation with the Saudi intelligence service.
Terrorist Cell Dismantled
Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said Thursday its forces wiped out a terrorist outfit in the country’s northwestern city of Sardasht, which is close to the Iran-Iraq border.
In a statement, the IRGC Ground Force’s Hamzeh Seyed al-Shohada Base explained that following reconnaissance and intelligence operations in Sardasht, an armed terrorist outfit that intended to infiltrate and carry out sabotage operations in Iran’s northwestern area was disbanded upon entering the country.
Sardasht is the main city of Sardasht County in Iran’s West Azarbaijan province. The city was attacked with chemical weapons by Iraq under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his imposed war against Iran in the 1980s.
The IRGC statement added that during the timely operation, some weapons and ammunition were confiscated, but it did not clarify whether there were any casualties.
Iranian forces frequently engage in clashes with terrorist outfits or carry out operations against them near the country’s western and eastern borders.
Last month, two terrorist outfits were disbanded in separate operations conducted by the Intelligence Ministry and police forces in Iran’s northwestern areas, during which two terrorists were killed, two others injured, and dozens arrested by the Iranian forces.
Back in July, the country’s security forces disbanded a takfiri terrorist group that sought to carry out simultaneous terrorist attacks in several provinces in cooperation with intelligence services of two European and regional countries.