Iran Disbands Foreign-Backed Network Spying on Senior Officials, Vital Entities

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the security forces have arrested members of a spying network who were engaged in a project run by a foreign spy agency to extract information about the Iranians travelling abroad.

The spy agency had been monitoring the Iranians with responsibility in different positions or special expertise in various fields as well as those who have access to important information in the country’s sensitive organizations, the statement read.

The ministry added that its round-the-clock surveillance and measures led to the identification of the network’s “liaisons and executive agents” in several Iranian organizations and institutions.

The foreign spy agency told one of its spies the names of its targets among the Iranians traveling abroad, the statement read. The spy gave the names to its liaisons until they reached the operators of administrative systems in several organizations.

The operators used their database and extracted the information of the targets and delivered them to the liaisons, it noted. The liaisons transferred the information to the network’s ringleader who delivered them to the spying agency.

Iran Captures Mossad Agents in Another Blow to Israelhttps://t.co/zVCbLVL2rb pic.twitter.com/wck4wJAhgA

— Fars News Agency (@EnglishFars) May 21, 2023

Iran has in recent months captured several members of spy networks affiliated to foreign secret services. The militants were involved in making explosives and hand-made bombs and linked to foreigners and planned to carry out counter-security acts and set up operational groups to direct the riots in Iran.

Back in mid-January, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced that the country’s security forces have arrested at least 13 members of Mossad spy agency who planned to murder a military official and carry out several acts of sabotage in major cities.

It said in a statement that security agents have dismantled two espionage and terrorist teams linked with the Mossad spy agency.

It added that 23 members of the terror network had been identified and 13 of them, who were operating on Iranian soil, had been detained.

In late December, the intelligence ministry announced that the country’s security agents have captured all members of four terrorist teams of Mossad before they could carry out operations in the country. They were planning to carry out terrorist attacks in some parts of the country.

And in mid-December, Iranian security troops captured the members of a Mossad spy network who were planning to sabotage Iran’s defense industry. Iran’s intelligence forces uncovered a plot by a Mossad espionage network to gather information from Iranian knowledge-based companies that cooperate with Iran’s defense industries.

It comes months after Iranian security forces disbanded an espionage network linked to the spy agency, detaining 10 elements who planned to carry out terror operations in the country.

Iran’s Judiciary announced in a statement in late October that 10 individuals with links to Mossad have been arrested in West Azarbaijan province.

The members of the terror outfit received rigorous training from Israeli intelligence officers and were collecting information about individuals cooperating with the Iranian security and intelligence apparatus, the statement read.

They tried to extract information from their victims through abduction, various threats and violent assault and battery, it noted.

And in July, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced that it has captured a network of Mossad agents who had entered the country to conduct terror attacks on sensitive sites.

It declared that the detained mercenaries intended to blow up a sensitive military site inside Iran by highly powerful bombs. But they were identified and arrested by the country’s security forces before they could take any action to carry out acts of sabotage.

Iranian nuclear scientists and sites have been the target of the Western and Israeli spy agencies’ terror and sabotage attacks in recent years, but, Iranian intelligence bodies say they have managed to thwart a large number of these plots.