Official Strongly Rejects Rumors about ISIL Operation in Western Iran

“The ISIL hasn’t been able to carry out military operations in the province and no move of this terrorist group would go unnoticed,” Director-General of Kermanshah Governor’s Office for Security and Law Enforcement Affairs Nosratollah Moradi said on Saturday.

In relevant remarks late November, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari announced that 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 last month 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 last month.

“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.”