In a statement issued on Saturday, the National Security Council provided explanations about the developments that have been unfolding in the country since the death of a young Iranian woman in police custody on September 16.
The statement said enemies, who have been seeking an excuse to rob the people of their calm, tried to incite unrest on the streets through consensus-building among counter-revolutionary groups, psychological warfare, and false-flag killings meant to incriminate the Iranian police.
“Therefore, what’s today taking place before the eyes of the people are not civil protests but vandalism, violence, and unrest by a small group of rioters, which allowed separatist groups and Daesh terrorists to exploit the situation and carry out brutal attacks on innocent civilians,” it said.
The statement said the 200 people killed in the chaos included security forces, civilians killed in terror acts, victims of false-flag murders, rioters, and members of separatist groups.
The incidents, it added, inflicted damage worth thousands of billions of tomans on state, public and private property.