According to Iranian law enforcement agencies, the suspected leader and four other members of a spy network is connected to Israel’s secret services have been apprehended by Iranian police.
The nationality of those arrested was not disclosed, but on Thursday it was stated that they had undergone training for armed operations and sabotage.
The law enforcement intelligence agency, Mossad, claimed in a statement carried by the semi-official ILNA news agency, “The five members of this spy network were given various pledges from [Israel’s] Mossad, including financial promises, to gather information from important areas across the country.”
The Prime Minister’s Office in Israel, which is in charge of the Mossad foreign intelligence organization, declined to comment on the alleged arrests.
Israel and Iran have been rivals states for a very long time, and their current point of contention is Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran claims Israel has killed several Iranian officials, including a senior officer in May. Israel accuses Iran of supporting militant assaults against it. Israel neither confirms nor denies such behavior.
Esmaeil Khatib, Iran’s minister of intelligence, claimed on Wednesday that Tehran had stopped subversive attempts by the “Zionist government,” which is the country’s label for Israel
Iran’s security forces claimed last week that they had caught a network of Israeli agents who had infiltrated Iran from the Kurdish region of Iraq to conduct sabotage and what they named “terrorist operations.”
According to Nournews, a publication linked to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, the arrested agents were on their way to blow up an unnamed “sensitive center” in Isfahan, which is home to the majority of the nation’s nuclear facilities among other things.
Iran referred to two significant sabotage attacks against the Natanz nuclear facilities in Isfahan in 2020 and 2021 as “nuclear terrorism.”
Observers have noted that a further escalation of tensions between Iran and Israel may be possible as they continue to rise.
The developments come as tensions with Israel have risen. Israel has vowed to do all it takes to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, while indirect talks with the US to revive the 2015 nuclear deal have been stuck since March.
