Official: Iran Confiscates ISIL-Bound Cargo of Guillotines

“Few days ago, we seized a cargo containing guillotines (an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading) that was headed to the ISIL,” Director-General of Iran’s Customs Office for Transit Affairs Vahid Dashtbani told the Iranian Seday-e Eqtesad daily on Sunday.

The Iranian security forces have in the past foiled many ISIL plots to create insecurity and tension within the country.

Head of Iran’s Cyber Police (FATA) Brigadier General Seyed Kamal Hadianfar had announced in December that 53 supporters of the ISIL terrorist group were identified and arrested in Iran in almost two years.

“The FATA (Cyber) Police has identified 285 websites affiliated to those who supported the ISIL or promoted ISIL’s thoughts in Iran in the past 20 months,” Hadianfar told reporters in a press conference in Tehran.

He said that 108 websites which supported the ISIL were run from outside Iran, adding that all these sites have been filtered and closed with the help of the Interpol.

“34 pages or profiles of these 285 websites were inactive and totally, 53 people who supported the ISIL inside Iran were identified, arrested and sent to courts,” Hadianfar said.

Also late November, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari announced that the Iranian forces had several times defused attempts by the ISIL terrorist group to stir insecurity in the country.

“The ISIL has long wanted to stoke insecurity in Iran but it has failed,” General Jafari told reporters in Tehran.

He underlined the IRGC and other security and intelligence forces’ superiority over the terrorists, and said, “These groups have different logistical networks and recently one of them was dismantled and other groups are also being fully monitored and will come under raid in due time.”

Officials in Tehran announced in November that security and intelligence forces had traced and dismantled two terrorist groups in Iran’s bordering provinces in the Southeast and Northwest.

“Following a series of intelligence operations by security forces in cooperation with the brave people settling along the country’s Eastern borders, a team of terrorists were dismantled in the Southeastern Sistan and Balouchestain province,” Iran’s deputy intelligence minister for domestic security said.

The deputy minister, who was speaking to the state-run TV, indicated that the terrorists have been sent to the country by the US and certain regional reactionary states, and said they had “10 ready-to-blast bombing devices made of 150kg of explosive materials” and “intended to disrupt security along the roads in the bordering region between Rask and Iranshahr” in Sistan and Balouchestan province.

He also said that the intelligence ministry traced and dismantled another terrorist cell in the Northwestern province of West Azarbaijan, adding that the terrorists were affiliated to “anti-revolutionary groups and infiltrated the country to stage terror and sabotage operations”.

The official explained that the terrorists had also staged terror attacks on the lives of teachers and government employees.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Seyed Mahmoud Alavi disclosed in November that the country’s intelligence and security bodies had cracked down on 10 ISIL cells who were preparing to wage a wave of terrorist attacks across the country.

“The ISIL is a protégé of the US and Israel,” Alavi said, and added, “Thanks to its vigilance and full intelligence superiority, the Islamic Republic of Iran has blocked any move by them in such a way that more than 10 terrorist cells were discovered and dismantled in the (lunar) month of Moharram (October 15-November 12).”

The intelligence minister, who was addressing Muslim scholars in the Western Kurdistan province, reiterated that the present security is the result of cooperation of security, intelligence, military bodies (Army and IRGC) and the judiciary, and said, “Many of the enemies’ plots have been defused in cooperation with people.”