Iran broke up an Islamic State (IS) group plan to bomb commemorations marking the Shiite religious mourning period of Ashura, state media reported, the latest alleged militant plot to target the country.
The official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) news agency quoted Iranian Minister of Intelligence Mahmoud Alavi as saying several foreign nationals were detained with about 100kg of explosives. State television also reported the arrests.
Alavi late on Wednesday said the suspects planned to attack Ashura events in Fars Province.
Photo: AFP
Ashura marks the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, at the Battle of Karbala in present-day Iraq in the 7th century.
Alavi referred to the suspects as “takfiri terrorists,” a term used by Iranian officials to describe militant Sunni Muslim fundamentalists like the IS.
“Intelligence Ministry agents, with the cooperation of other security forces, succeeded to defuse one of the anti-security plots of the takfiri terrorist groups and prevent an inhuman crime in the ceremonies,” he said.
There was no other information immediately released, though the arrest of foreigners on such charges is rare. Iran has helped Shiite militias fighting against the IS in Iraq, while also supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Alavi blamed Iran’s foreign “enemies” for helping the bombing suspects, without elaborating.
Iran in recent months has announced an increasing number of thwarted militant attacks.
In June, Iran said it broke up one of the “biggest terrorist plots” ever on its soil by Sunni extremists planning bombings in Tehran and elsewhere during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Iran increasingly has warned of possible militant assaults targeting the country, which has not seen large-scale attacks since the 1980s.
Recently though, Iran has faced increased attacks from Kurdish separatists. Arabs in its southern, oil-rich region and Baluch militants also launch occasional attacks.
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
China’s military news agency yesterday warned that Japanese militarism is infiltrating society through series such as Pokemon and Detective Conan, after recent controversies involving events at sensitive sites. In recent days, anime conventions throughout China have reportedly banned participants from dressing as characters from Pokemon or Detective Conan and prohibited sales of related products. China Military Online yesterday posted an article titled “Their schemes — beware the infiltration of Japanese militarism in culture and sports.” The article referenced recent controversies around the popular anime series Pokemon, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia, saying that “the evil influence of Japanese militarism lives on in
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
RSS