Iran’s Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi has announced the arrest of more than 40 terrorist operatives, saying several terrorist plots have been thwarted across the country.
Speaking to reporters in Tehran on Tuesday, Alavi added that over 20 operatives, who were travelling between Iran and neighboring Syria and Iraq, were detained in border areas.
He said 10 were also captured in the northern provinces of Tehran, Mazandaran and Golestan and the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan.
The minister also said 14 others had been detained in connection with last month’s terror attack in the Safiabad district of the city of Dezful in the southwestern Khuzestan Province.
He said eight of the 14 detainees were the main elements involved in the the October 16 attack on a mourning ceremony for Imam Hussein, the third Shia imam.
The minister also noted that heavy losses were inflicted on a terrorist group responsible for several attacks on police station and governor's office in the city of Sousangerd in Khuzestan Province on November 7.
"The arrested people are terrorists supported by reactionary states in the [Middle East] region," Alavi said.
The Intelligence Ministry made the arrests ahead of the important mourning rituals on Arba’een on December 2, marking 40 days after the martyrdom of the third Shia imam.