A senior intelligence official announced that security and intelligence forces have identified and dismantled two terrorist groups in two border provinces in the southeast and northwest.
"Following a series of intelligence operations by security forces in cooperation with the brave people living along the country's eastern borders, a team of terrorists were dismantled in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan," Fars News Agency quoted an unnamed deputy intelligence minister as saying on Saturday.
The official noted that the terrorists had been sent to the country by the US and certain "reactionary" states in the region.
They had "10 ready-to-blast bombing devices containing 150 kg of explosive materials" and "intended to disrupt security along the roads in the border region between Rasak and Iranshahr" in Sistan-Baluchestan Province, he explained.
He also said the Intelligence Ministry traced and smashed 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 also carried out terror attacks on teachers and government employees. Intelligence Minister Seyyed Mahmoud Alavi disclosed last Tuesday that intelligence and security services had cracked down on 10 Islamic State-linked cells preparing to wage a wave of terrorist attacks across the country.
"IS is a protégé of the US and Israel," Alavi said at the time, stressing that "thanks to its vigilance and full intelligence superiority, the Islamic Republic of Iran blocked all their moves in such a way that more than 10 terrorist cells were discovered and dismantled in the [lunar] month of Moharram [October 15-November 12]."
A day later, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps announced in a statement that it seized a substantial stockpile of weaponry and military equipment following a raid in the western province of Kermanshah, dismantling a terrorist group during the raid.
The public relations office of Kermanshah Province's Nabi Akram Corps announced in the statement that efforts by the IRGC and security forces led to the capture of members of a terrorist team in the province's border areas. Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari said last Sunday that his country had warned Iran, France and the US of imminent terrorist attacks by IS in these countries before the Nov. 13 Paris bombings and shootings by IS militants.
