Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said this Friday that the United States and the United Kingdom were “directly” complicit in organizing the recent riots in different parts of the country.
It was on this Friday afternoon that Iran’s Intelligence Ministry issued a statement, explaining the direct role of US and UK in the recent disturbances in Iran. It also said that Iran’s security and intelligence forces have so far arrested dozens of terrorists connected to Israel and anti-revolutionary organizations outside Iran, especially the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), an anti-Iranian group that its operatives are mostly based in Albania, as well as Komala Party of Kurdistan.
The ministry then referred to apprehending “49 MKO terrorists for actively disseminating false information, inciting protestors to carry out terror and sabotage acts, directing slogans, and being present in the streets to cause damage to public property.”
The ministry added 92 individuals connected to the old U.S.-supported Pahlavi regime had been found and detained during the unrest. Nine foreigners have also been arrested including citizens of France, Germany and Italy, the Netherlands, and Sweden, the ministry noted.
Several handguns, different kinds of machine guns, cartridges, shotguns, and ammo were also confiscated from the detainees.
Everything started from last month on 16 September when following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, protests turned violent in the country, where security personnel were assaulted, police cars, ambulances, and other public property were smashed in some cities.
Regarding the police reaction to the violent riots, the ministry said “in recent days security forces, who are preserving law and order, had to deal with a variety of cult-like organizations, agents of foreign spy agencies, fooled agents of rioters on the streets as well as direct involvement of the American and British governments and their Saudi allies.”
Riots turned terroristic
But civil riots were only one part of the story in Iran these days. In Zahedan city of the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan on Friday, 19 people were killed, including one high-ranking commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during heavy gun battles between face-covered gunmen and security forces.
According to the security council of Sistan and Baluchestan province, the attackers “planned to make the situation in the city unsafe by shooting,” but security forces reacted with vigilance and kept the situation under control.
Later, Iran’s state media announced that “the assassin of the IRGC general has been killed by the forces serving at the IRGC’s Salman unit in Sistan and Balouchestan.”
US trace in the riots confirmed
It seems what Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said in its Friday statement about the role of US in the riots became even clearer as one US citizen was among 13 people killed in Iraq in a rocket attack carried out by Iran on Wednesday.
The news was confirmed by the Department of State a day later on Thursday. However, the Department refused to give more information about the American victim due to “privacy considerations,” said State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel during a press conference.
The US Army Central Command said that US forces were present in the region of Iraq’s Kurdistan and that they could shut down one Iranian drone while they were traveling in the area. “No US forces were wounded or killed as a result of the strikes and there is no damage to U.S. equipment,” it said in a statement Wednesday.
