TEHRAN – Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi has lauded the Intelligence Ministry’s “decisive” move in arresting the ringleader of a U.S.-based terrorist group, the Foreign Ministry website reported.

“The U.S. regime considers itself to be standing by the Iranian people while it harbors and supports in different ways notorious terrorists and those who have claimed responsibility for several terrorist operations inside Iran and have the blood of innocent Iranian people and citizens on their hands,” Mousavi said in a statement on Saturday evening.

Mousavi also expressed the Islamic Republic’s strong protest at the U.S. government, saying, “The regime must be held accountable for supporting this terrorist cell and other outfits as well as criminals that lead sabotage, armed and terrorist operations from within the United States against the Iranian people and shed the blood of Iranian citizens.”

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced on Saturday that it has arrested the ringleader of an anti-Iran terrorist group based in the United States.

Iranian security forces have managed to arrest the head of the terrorist group, Jamshid Sharmahd, who directed “armed operations and acts of sabotage” in Iran from the U.S., the ministry said in a statement.

Following a complicated operation, the ringleader of the group, named Tondar (Thunder), was arrested and he is “now in the powerful hands” of Iranian security forces, it added.

The ministry said it has dealt a heavy blow to the Tondar terror group that planned and carried out a deadly terrorist attack on Seyyed al-Shohada mosque in the southern city of Shiraz, Fars Province, in 2008, which killed 14 people and wounded 215 others.

Iran’s Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi also told the national TV that “people like Sharmahd make a mistake to rely on the U.S. and the Zionist regime as these two support them as long as they serve their interests.”

“Although Interpol was tasked with arresting him, no action was taken against him, which shows the West's empty slogan of fighting terrorism,” he pointed out.

MH/PA