TEHRAN — On Saturday, Seyyed Esmaeil Khatib, Iran’s Minister of Intelligence, said religious places have become a target for the Takfiri groups to commit terrorist acts.

Speaking at a meeting in Fars province, Khatib said, “One of the centers of interest for Takfiris is religious places, and this example of recent terrorist act carried out in the courtyard of the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS) in Mashhad shows the enmity of the Takfiri groups.”

Khatib was referring to the Tuesday brutal knife attack in the shrine of Imam Reza which martyred two clergymen and injured another one.

The assailant was a 21-year-old Uzbek named Abdollatif Moradi, who was heavily influenced by the Takfiri teachings.

The minister said such malicious acts which create ethnic and religious conflict between Shias and Sunnis and other ethnicities are primarily aimed to divert public opinion from the crimes of the Zionist regime.

Such acts are also intended to create new security problems in Iran by using media outlets, Khatib said.

“This requires that scholars, intellectuals, and the people would be wary against these seditions and neutralize them through intelligence and enlightenment,” the intelligence minister noted.

Khatib went on to say that the Zionist regime is trying to play the role of the regional gendarme with the support of the arrogant countries and certain Arab countries, however these efforts are confronted and neutralized by the brave actions of the Palestinians.