Tehran, Oct 3 (IANS) Iran’s Intelligence Ministry announced Saturday that its forces have arrested 31 members of four organised “sabotage” networks allegedly linked to the United States and Israel in the southeastern Kerman province.
In a statement published on its website, the ministry said the networks’ members were detained in Sirjan County, adding that the detainees sought to carry out the US and Israeli “enemies’ plots” to disrupt people’s security and destroy public and private property.
According to the ministry, the networks were preparing to cause street riots and destruction and had made large numbers of Molotov cocktails as well as tools to damage public property, such as urban surveillance cameras, Xinhua News Agency reported.
It added that the networks’ members had committed “widespread brutal and destructive” acts during the January unrests in Iran, including setting the governor’s office building on fire, damaging banks, government buildings, as well as public and private buildings and properties, attacking police stations and destroying urban surveillance cameras.
On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi rejected the British government’s claim that Iran has “played a part” in a recent incident near the Royal Air Force (RAF) Fairford, a base hosting the US Air Force in southwest England.
British police on Sunday detained five men, all in their 20s, on suspicion of “explosives and terrorism offences” in the Gloucestershire countryside near the air base after they were informed that three vans had been seen heading to the base, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Araghchi issued the denial in a post on social media platform X Thursday, a day after British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said in an interview with BBC News, “There are strong indications that Iran played a part in what happened over the weekend at RAF Fairford, but of course it remains an ongoing, complex, and serious police investigation.”
On Monday, the five individuals were all released on police bail after an examination of what was found in the vans and an investigation into the addresses linked to them across London.
“PM Burnham says the UK Government ‘can confirm our belief that we believe Iran to have played a part’ in the RAF Fairford incident,” said Araghchi, adding, “I can confirm Iran’s belief that releasing supposed terrorists working for foreign states really says it all. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
–IANS
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