In a statement on Monday, the ministry said the terrorists were connected via “terrorist circles in Denmark and the Netherlands” to the Israeli spy agency.
The terrorists planned to carry out attacks in the month of Muharram — during which millions of Iranians hold public mourning ceremonies for the third Shia Imam — but were arrested before “entering [their] extensive… operational phase.”
The terrorists planned to bomb, among other places, the burial place of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by the United States in 2020. General Soleimani is buried in his birthplace of Kerman.
The Intelligence Ministry statement said the terrorists planned sabotage activities in the six Iranian provinces of Tehran, Kerman, Esfahan, Kohgilouyeh and Boyer Ahmad, Kurdistan, and Mazandaran.
They also planned to attack popular gathering places, including Muharram mourning ceremonies, fueling stations, power pylons, and natural gas plants to disrupt domestic and export supplies.
Forty three bombs with high destructive power were confiscated from the terrorists, including remote-controlled ones and projectile ones that had been meant to be used at mourning processions and ceremonies.
Other weapons, including “tools that are merely used in street riots,” were also taken in.
The statement said the terrorists had formerly carried out a number of harmful operations in order for their employers in Denmark and the Netherlands to assess their capabilities.
They had filmed and photographed those activities and had forwarded the images to “terrorist media in Europe and the US.” Those preliminary operations included hurling Molotov cocktails at governmental buildings, and setting fire to banks, ATM machines, buses, communications antenna, etc.
