TEHRAN – A senior Iranian general has said that the recent unrest that erupted after the death of Mahsa Amini were the produce of 47 spy agencies.

General Qolamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basjij Organization, said in the enemy used a “hybrid warfare” against Iran in the recent unrest, according to Iran’s state news agency IRNA.

Speaking before a group of Basij members in Tehran on Wednesday morning, General Soleimani said “sedition of riots” was supposed to kick off simultaneously with the start of the academic year in Iran but it took place earlier and “47 spy agencies waged an all-out hybrid war against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Unrest in Iran broke out after Mahsa Amini fainted at a police station on September 13 and died three days later in hospital. The Iranian forensic authorities investigated the cause of the death and said she died of a chronic disease.

But some foreign media exploited the death to encourage unrest throughout the country, which resulted in the death of dozens of security forces and ordinary people. General Soleimani echoed the assessment of Iran’s intelligence community that the unrest was instigated by foreign countries.

Two of Iran’s leading intelligence agencies have published a lengthy report detailing foreign meddling in Iran during the unrest. And the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, has said on various occasions that the U.S. and some of its allies were involved in Iran’s unrest.

In an early October speech, the Leader had said that the riots that erupted in the wake of the Mahsa Amini death were planned by the enemy. “In the incident that took place, a young girl passed away. Well, it was a bitter event. It saddened me very much too.

But the right reaction to this incident, before investigations could take place, before anything was certain yet, was not for some to come and make the streets insecure. It was not to create insecurity for people, to disrupt security, burn the Qur’an, pull off women’s scarves, and to set fire to mosques, hussainiyahs, banks, and people’s cars.

This kind of reaction to a case, which was unfortunate, was not normal. This was not a natural response,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. He added, “These riots were planned. These riots had been planned. If the incident with the young girl had not taken place, they would have found another excuse to create insecurity and riots in the country in the beginning of the month of Mehr (September) this year.

Who designed these plans? I openly state that these schemes were designed by the US, the usurping, fake, Zionist regime, and their mercenaries. They sat down and planned. They devised these schemes. Their employees, mercenaries, wage earners, and some treasonous Iranians abroad helped them.

Sometimes when I say ‘a certain event was planned by a foreign enemy,’ some are very sensitive to the term ‘foreign enemy.’ When I say, ‘Such and such was the work of foreigners. It was carried out by foreign enemies,’ some quickly jump to the defense of the US and Zionist intelligence services.

They use all sorts of fallacious analyses and rhetoric to try to show that foreigners were not in any way involved in that event.” He noted, “Riots take place all the time around the world. If you look at Europe, especially France, massive riots occur every now and then on the streets of Paris. I want to ask you, ‘Has the US President or the US House of Representatives ever supported European rioters? Have they ever issued a statement saying we stand with you?’”