Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alawi disclosed some details of the recent operations that foiled a series of terrorist attacks across the country and led to the arrest of a number of suspected "takfiri terrorists".
A takfiri is a hardline Sunni Muslim who accuses followers of some other Islamic sects of apostasy.
Speaking to reporters in Tehran on Tuesday, Alawi said a series of operations to arrest the terrorists began on June 14 and continued until June 20, Tasnim News Agency reported.
On Monday the Intelligence Ministry had announced that its forces thwarted a major plot by the terrorists for a series of bombing raids across the country during religious events in the fasting month of Ramadan.
Alawi said "10 people have been arrested in Tehran and in three border and central provinces." Investigations in and outside the country and interrogation of the suspects are underway.
According to the minister, the terrorists had planned several attacks including "planting bombs, detonation of remote control bombs, suicide attacks and blowing up booby-trapped vehicles."
50 Targets
The terrorists wanted to explode bombs in crowded locations and had identified 50 targets, the minister explained, saying they had even prepared the explosive material for some of the attacks and were preparing or receiving some for the others.
Alawi said 100 kilograms of explosive material and precursor chemical compounds were confiscated in the operations, while the intelligence operations "blocked the delivery of two tons of explosives to the terrorists."
This week's extensive operation were conducted after three successive attacks on terrorists in the border regions in the previous weeks.
On June 13, troops from the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Ground Force killed five members of the banned Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) group in an ambush in Sardasht region in the northwestern province of West Azarbaijan.
On the same day, police killed five members of the Jaish-ul-Adl terrorist group in an exchange of fire in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan, while a trooper was also martyred.
And on June 15, IRGC forces killed a number of militants in clashes with two terrorist teams trying to enter the Oshnavieh border region near the frontier with Iraq.
