Iran cites UK role in inciting revolt

Iran’s Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi has accused the British Intelligence service of collaborating with the opposition in the country’s post-election unrest last year.

“One of the intelligence services that sought to overthrow the Islamic Republic since the advent of the [Islamic] Revolution, was British,” he said during a speech in City of Ray in southern Tehran on Thursday.

British intelligence, he added, “acted quite diligently with precise knowledge of our culture to influence individuals, and they learned that one of ways to harm (manipulate) people was through their relatives.”

Moslehi then emphasized that one of most effective ways of using such tactics in the past 30 years was exerting influence on some of the children of the elite.

He said that one of the main strategies of foreign intelligence services against Iran was to manipulate the elite through their children and cited the frequent visits such individuals have made to Dubai and London to meet with British intelligence agents.

The Iranian minister went on to reiterate that Iran’s intelligence apparatus closely monitors such activities and would confront them timely and appropriately as conditions warrant.

The Iranian government has clear evidence proving Britain’s role in supporting some opposition leaders through connections they had made with their close aides and family members, according to Moslehi.

On Wednesday, Leader of Islamic Ummah and Oppressed People Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei said the Iranian nation succeeded in defusing sedition efforts incited by enemies after the presidential election in June 2009.

Imam Khamenei described last year’s post-vote unrest as a “big challenge” and said, “In this big challenge, the enemy supported sedition provokers on the one hand and even publicized their names, but on the other hand, the Iranian nation showed a strong presence in the scene.”

“As the Iranian nation demonstrated its initiative and bravery during the (eight-year Iraqi) imposed war, it also defused the enemies’ sedition in this eight-month soft war,” he added.