Iran arrests people suspected of having connections to French spies

May 1, 2023 - 20:29

TEHRAN- Iran has apprehended members of a network with ties to Marxist counter-revolutionary organizations, the terrorist cult the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), and French spies.

Fars news agency stated on Monday, citing informed sources, that all of the inmates had previously been imprisoned and freed under pardons given by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

According to the investigation, the inmates had come together to plan and coordinate raising tensions in teacher and worker meetings, inspiring them to strike nationally, and bringing up the false poisoning projects at schools once more.

Two of those detained were Maryam Assadollahi (also known as Anisha) and Reyhaneh Ansari.

Because of their association and collaboration with two French agents, they were detained last year.

Last year, ahead to Workers’ and Teachers’ Day, French spies entered the country to plan disturbances and offer money to their operatives.

After being recognized, they were apprehended by Iranian intelligence officers and watched for a period to identify their domestic associates.

The inmates had congregated at the residence of a former ringleader of an unlawful self-proclaimed labor union.

The gathering was organized by foreign elements and took place under the pretense of visiting inmates’ relatives.

IRGC foils sabotage team linked to MKO in northern Iran

An anti-government sabotage group linked to the terrorist MKO group in northern province of Mazandaran has also been disbanded, according to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) intelligence officials.

Mostafa Bazvand, the IRGC commander in the city of Babolsar, said on Monday that the team was operating in the northern city with the intention of misleading young people.

Based on his remarks, the team’s commanders engaged in acts of terrorism and sabotage and had direct communication with foreign-based organizations.

Since the riots began in Iran in mid-September 2022, the group had been sending video footage and other information to Persian-language media networks based in the United States and Britain while also misleading children, the IRGC commander said.

They were held by IRGC intelligence forces, he continued, and their social media accounts were also suspended.

When Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, passed away in mid-September in hospital three days after collapsing at a police station in Tehran, riots erupted in certain cities across Iran.

Amini’s death was eventually ascribed by an inquiry to her underlying medical condition rather than to alleged police abuse.

Over the past three decades, the MKO has carried out a number of terrorist attacks against Iranian citizens and government figures.

About 12,000 of the nearly 17,000 Iranians who have died in terrorist attacks since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 have been victims of MKO-perpetrated terror.

The EU designated the organization as a terrorist organization until January 2009, when the EU Council withdrew the label in response to intense political lobbying.

Likewise, the United States followed the decision in September of 2012.