TEHRAN – Three top Iranian security officials attended a closed meeting of the Iranian parliament on Sunday to brief lawmakers on the situation in the country amid the unrest. 

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, Police Chief Hossein Ashtari, and Deputy Commander of the IRGC for Operations Abbas Nilforoushan attended the parliament and provided reports on the unrest that engulfed Iran over the last days.

No details came out of the closed session. But some lawmakers have offered some of what has been discussed in the parliament. 

According to the state news agency IRNA, General Nilforoushan briefed the lawmakers on the IRGC’s shelling of terrorist groups in Iraqi Kurdistan. 

Lawmaker Mohammad Hossein Fallahi told IRNA that Ashtari and Vahidi provided a report on the causes of the riots and the measures taken by the intelligence and security forces in this regard as well as the future plans regarding the situation in the country. 

Fallahi quoted Ashtari and Vahidi as asserting that the riots are fully pre-planned. “The death of Ms. Amini was an excuse for these riots. According to a CIA report, the clique of Hypocrites [MEK] and Kumala had announced before recent riots that they are ready to launch joint operations in Iran. Thus some of these elements entered the country and started the riots. It was planned that other people enter the country but the IRGC operation prevented that,” Fallahi told IRNA. 

He added, “The forces of the terrorist groups Kumala and Hypocrites had received the necessary training to create disturbances and riots in a planned manner and had detailed planning for the implementation of the scenario of producing death cases.”

He noted, “Later, some young people went into riots under the influence of Instagram and cyberspace, the Zionist regime [Israel] and the United States also supported the riots and even announced that they were ready to give asylum to the rioters.”

Moinuddin Saeedi, a lawmaker representing Sistan-Baluchistan province who attended the meeting, told IRNA that parliament is set to dispatch a committee to the province to investigate the deadly attack that rocked Zahedan, the provincial capital, where dozens of people were killed in a terrorist attack on police stations and government institutions. 

“The representatives of Sistan-Baluchistan asked the interior minister today to present a special report on the security issues of this province in a closed session,” he said.

Seyed Nezamuddin Mousavi, another lawmaker attending the session, provided a portion of what the interior minister presented in the session.

“Despite the level of widespread provocations by the enemies in the last two weeks, people did not join the riots. According to the statistics provided by the interior minister, at the height of the clashes and riots on the 22nd of September, no more than 45,000 people (0.05% of the total population) participated in the gatherings in all the cities of the country,” Mousavi, a former head of Fars News, told IRNA.

The session also was marked by slogans and chants by some lawmakers. They chanted slogans such as “death to America,” “The blood flowing in our vessels is a gift to our Leader,” “O Free Leader, we are ready, we are ready,” “Death to the Hypocrites,” and “O Police, thank you, thank you.”