Tehran has accused seven recently detained foreign nationals of having sought to “incite riots” inside Iran with the aim of destabilizing the country.
Since mid-September, Iran has been shaken by violent anti-government protests that have reportedly left hundreds of demonstrators and scores of security personnel dead.
Iranian officials have repeatedly blamed the continued unrest on external enemies, including the United States and Israel.
On Dec. 25, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (RGC) arrested seven “UK-linked” individuals for suspected involvement in the ongoing protests.
“Seven main leaders of the recent protests linked to the UK were detained by intelligence services of the RGC, including dual nationals who were trying to leave the country,” the RGC said in a statement.
All the arrests were reportedly carried out in Iran’s southcentral Kerman province.
The RGC went on to allege the existence of a UK-led organization, code-named “Zagros,” which it claimed was operating “a team of active counterrevolutionary elements inside and outside the country to lead subversive activities.”
On Dec. 26, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said the seven individuals, whose names haven’t been released to the public, had actively “incited riots” inside Iran.
Speaking to reporters, Kanaani also claimed that “certain countries,” particularly the UK, were playing “an unconstructive role regarding recent developments in Iran.”
According to British press reports, UK authorities are currently awaiting more information about the arrests from their Iranian counterparts.
Iran Sees Kurdish Connection
Anti-government protests first erupted in Tehran on Sept. 16, when Mahsa Amini, a young woman from Iran’s majority-Kurdish city of Saqez, died in police custody.Since then, the unrest has been largely concentrated in northwestern Iran, where most of the country’s roughly 10 million Kurds reside.
According to rights groups, hundreds of protesters–and scores of security personnel–have been killed in intermittent clashes.
Thousands more have reportedly been arrested for participating in protests and “acts of violence.”
On Dec. 26, judicial authorities in Tehran said more than 80 percent of the protesters detained in the capital had since been released.
The Epoch Times was unable to verify the reports.
Late last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian accused foreign actors of attempting to “foment civil war” in Iran.
He went on to assert that Iran had documentary evidence that “western countries” were actively involved in the unrest.
While he didn’t name the countries allegedly involved, he claimed that the same forces were also arming “terrorists” based in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.
Since mid-November, Iran has struck several targets in Iraq’s Kurdish region, including the headquarters of the Erbil-based Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the Sulaymaniyah-based Komala Party.
On Nov. 22, Iran fired missiles at the office of the Free Kurdistan Party, a dissident Iranian Kurdish group based near Iraq’s city of Kirkuk.
Baghdad condemned the strikes, saying they violated Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
But Tehran says the targeted groups are fomenting unrest–at the behest of foreign actors–in Iranian cities near the border.
‘Cognitive Warfare’
In a recent interview, Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib accused the United States, the UK, France, Israel, and Saudi Arabia of actively promoting the unrest.The four countries were employing “media and cyberspace” to engage in “cognitive warfare” against the Iranian government, he said.
“These riots are taking place more in the media and cyberspace than [they are as] a symbol of public protest ... on the streets,” Khatib told Iran’s Tasnim News Agency on Nov. 10.
Describing the alleged scheme as a massive “influence operation,” he said social media and satellite television had come to play “a greater role than ever before, far from common media standards.”
Popular social media platforms were now being employed by the country’s enemies to “infiltrate trade unions and social classes and influence celebrities,” according to Khatib.
On Dec. 17, Taraneh Alidoosti, one of Iran’s best-known actresses, was reportedly detained for “spreading falsehoods” about the unrest on her Instagram channel.
