Iranian media has reported that the country’s intelligence services over the past few weeks have arrested a number of people tied closely to the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) charging them with espionage for the Israeli Mossad.

Parliament member Mahmoud Sadeqi revealed to local media that two members of the Iranian Strategic Center for Soft,War known as Ammariyon, headed by hardline cleric, Mehdi Taib. The cleric has close links with the IRGC intelligence unit which is headed by his brother Hussein Taib.

Sadeqi revealed to local media that two members of Ammariyon - Mohammed Hussein Rustumi, the web editor of www.ammariyon.ir and Redha Kalboor, an editor at Kayhan - have been arrested.

Kayhan newspaper is funded by the Supreme Leader.

On Thursday morning, Sadeqi tweeted that as he was investigating the arrest of some pro-Rouhani journalists, he discovered that the Ammariyon journalists were held on charges of spying for Mossad.

In the same context, the IRGC intelligence service arrested a number of well-known activists or so-called “home runners,” close to the Basij groups - namely, Abdul Rida Hilali, Ruhollah Bahmani and Mohammed Hussein Haddadian.

The Iranian newspaper Etemad confirmed that the activists were arrested on charges of "spying for Israel" and "involvement in illegal relations." Iranian MP Ghulam Ali Jafarzadeh posted on Thursday on Instagram that these organizers were arrested on charges of working with the Mossad and having illicit relations with the French embassy.

A spokesman for the Iranian judiciary, Gholam Hussein Mohseni, confirmed during a press conference, the arrest of two of the activists, saying one of them has been released while the other is still held pending investigations, according to Iranian news agency IRNA.

One of the men, Ruhollah Bahmani, is the brother-in-law of former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was released two weeks after the arrest, according to reformist sites.

This article is also available in Arabic



Last Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2020 KSA 09:51 - GMT 06:51