Deputy Minister: Several ISIL Groups Destroyed by Iran

Iranian Deputy Interior Minister Hossein Zolfaqari announced that the country’s security forces have disbanded several ISIL-affiliated terrorist groups in the past year.

The ISIL was attempting to recruit forces in the current year and it took many actions, Zolfaqari told reporters in Tehran on Sunday.

But, Iranian Intelligence Ministry, Law Enforcement and Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) forces have defused the ISIL plots in Iran due to their intelligence superiority in the region, “and a number of their (ISIL) gangs were disbanded at the bordering areas”, he continued.

In relevant remarks in February, Zolfaqari announced that the country’s security forces were studying and evaluating the potential threat of a terrorist group that had lately declared existence across Iran’s Eastern borders and called itself the Islamic State.

“A group under the name of Islamic State has declared existence across our borders in the East, and we are now studying this group to see if it is considered as an ISIL group or not,” Zolfaqari said in Tehran last month.

Stressing that the Iranian military and law enforcement forces are fulfilling their duty pretty well, while they enjoy intelligence superiority in the entire region, he said much effort is underway to immunize Iran to any possible threat from across the border “and wherever we feel there is more vulnerability, we focus more on that point”.

Also in October, Iranian Police Chief Brigadier General Esmayeel Ahmadi Moqaddam announced that the country’s borders would be fully sealed in 2015 to make any penetration of terrorists and drug traffickers impossible.

“Sealing border roads and deployment of border (guards) units in the remaining parts will be completed this year and if the parliament approves a good budget, the job will be accomplished in one year,” Ahmadi Moqaddam told reporters in the Central city of Arak.

Also in October, Iran’s Deputy Police Chief Brigadier General Hossein Ashtari underscored that close coordination and cooperation among the law enforcement, military, volunteer, and intelligence forces had resulted in turning Iran into one of the safest countries in the region.

Ashtari said that his forces, in a close cooperation with the volunteer forces (Basij), the IRGC, the Army, and the intelligence bodies, “are determined to maintain” and even boost the country’s security.