Iran nabs Saudi-sent terrorists: Senior official

Iran has apprehended a number of terrorists tasked by Saudi Arabia with carrying out bombings inside the Islamic Republic, says a senior Iranian official.

Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, made the announcement in the western Iranian city of Khorramabad on Monday.

“The Saudis opened a consulate in Iraq’s Arbil and had a number of terrorist groups enter into Iran to carry out explosions; they all have been arrested,” he said, referring to the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan. 

“The Foreign Ministry should circulate the documents and evidence pertaining to these groups throughout the world so that at least Muslim countries get to know that Saudis maniacally disturb the region’s calm and secure scene and pursue terror acts.”

He also advised that Iranian authorities stop exercising patience with Riyadh, and act against its acts of instigation.

On Sunday, it was reported that Iran had captured two Daeshis in the country’s western province of Hamadan which borders the Iranian provinces of Kurdistan and Kermanshah near Iraq.

The province’s intelligence director general said the two, both Iranian nationals with links to Daesh, had been caught during two separate intelligence operations while they were en route to Tehran.

Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi announced on Friday that Iran had dismantled more than 20 terrorist groups that had planned to detonate bombs and cause insecurity across the country during the last Persian year which ended on March 19).

On Tuesday, Rezaei warned that a seditious push is underway against the Muslim world, with Wahhabism at its center.

“Wahhabism and Zionism are maniacally acting against the Muslim and resistance front every day,” he said.

“Their last measure was to prevent Iranian pilgrims from going on the Hajj pilgrimage,” he added. 

Wahhabism is an extremely intolerant and violent ideology that dominates Saudi Arabia and is freely preached by clerics in the Arab country.

Takfirism, or the practice of accusing others of being “infidels,” which is the trademark practice of Daesh, is a characteristic of Wahhabism.

Last month, Iran said it will not send pilgrims to Hajj this year because Saudi Arabia is refusing to cooperate on arrangements for Iranians to join the annual rituals in September.

Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic relations with Iran on January 3 following attacks on vacant Saudi diplomatic perimeters in Tehran and Mashhad by angry protesters.

The attacks occurred during otherwise peaceful demonstrations in reaction to the Saudi execution of prominent cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

Iran arrested some 100 people over the acts of transgression. Iranian officials also strongly condemned the attacks.

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