The Iranian Mehr News agency reported Tuesday that three alleged spies of the Israeli Mossad intelligence organization seeking to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists were "detained" about two months ago in the province of Sistan and Baluchestan.
"The arrest of these Mossad operatives came after a complicated intelligence operation that lasted for eight months of monitoring them," Mehdi Shamsabadi, prosecutor general of the southeastern Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan, told the Iranian news agency.
According to the report, the three individuals, identified only by their initials, are accused of being operatives of the Israeli spy organization Mossad. They tried to use local Iranian administrative and executives to “access a path” for more classified information, and included an Iranian woman who worked for the government outside of Tehran.
The Mossad Israeli Secret Intelligence Service began in 1949 and conducts intelligence operations in cooperation with other nations, according to the organization’s website.
It has been involved in a range of operations that included running down Nazi war criminals.
According to a February BBC report, Iran blames the agency with killing Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, its most prominent nuclear scientist, with an artificial intelligence machine gun attack as he was traveling in a convoy in November 2020.
The Jerusalem Post reported Tuesday that there have been prior arrests of supposed Mossad members in Iran in March who were trying to conduct sabotage operations inside the country by hiring locals, and other arrests in July 2021 when the Iranian Intelligence Ministry said it arrested a “network of Mossad agents” involved in the shipment of weapons and ammunition through its western border.
The Times of Israel reported Tuesday that Iran also suspects Israel of assassinating scientists Ayoob Entezari and Kamran Aghamolaei by poisoning them during separate incidents “under murky circumstances.”
Both young men were reportedly healthy and died hundreds of miles apart and on different days, according to the report.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on June 12 that he believes Iran is “dangerously close” to developing a nuclear weapon.
“Iran is enriching uranium at an unprecedented rate and moving dangerously close to getting their hands on nuclear weapons,” he said in the June 12 report. “Without pressure from the West, the Islamic regime in Iran could get their hands on a nuclear bomb very soon.”
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