The outspoken chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps' (IRGC) Aerospace Force says around eighty operations planned by terrorist groups have been detected and foiled in Iran since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year, (March 21).
“Only 3 to 4 percent of the terrorist operations were successful in the current year and all the others were foiled due to timely moves by intelligence and security forces" local news outlets cited Brigadier-General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh as saying November 14, on the sidelines of a conference in northern Iranian province of Qazvin.
"Since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year, about 80 operations plotted by terrorist groups to destabilize Iran have been neutralized" Hajizadeh reiterated.
Meanwhile, Hajizadeh accused the US and its regional allies of pursuing three plans against Iran, including the economic war, the military confrontation, and internal destabilization.
"They aim is to implement a destabilizing plan in Iran like the ones they carried out in Iraq and Syria. Nevertheless, Iran has managed to take preemptive measures, and targeted the think-tanks of the terrorist groups which led to the failure of most of the terrorist operations", IRGC's Aerospace Force commander maintained.
The commander's remarks echo comments made earlier by the Intelligence Minister, mid-ranking cleric Mahmoud Alavi on discovering and annihilating dozens of terrorist cells in different parts of Iran.
In recent years Iranian intelligence and judicial officials have often claimed to have uncovered terror or spy networks, without presenting any details or concrete evidence. Public trials of such cases have been rare.
Despite claims of vigilance by Iranian officials, gunmen, disguised as IRGC forces killed 25 people at a military parade in the city of Ahvaz, in Khuzestan province, on September 22.
Islamic State militants and an Iranian ethnic Arab opposition movement took responsibility for the attack, but neither claim provided convincing evidence.
At least 10 Iranian security personnel including Revolutionary Guards were kidnapped on October 16, on the border with Pakistan. A Sunni separatist group said it had captured them as revenge for the oppression of Sunni Muslims.
However, weeks after the deadly attack in Ahvaz, capital of the oil-rich province of Khuzestan, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps ground operations chief Morteza Mirian claimed on Thursday, October 11, that "more than 1000 terrorist conspiracies have been thwarted within a month."
This sounded like an incredible scenario. If 1,000 operations were being planned, it would have probably involved thousands of “terrorists”, which would mean many of them were already in Iran. In such a case, how did they enter the country and who has such a large force focused on Iran, Radio Farda reported at the time.
ajizadeh claimed a week before the terror attack in Ahvaz that IRGC had been able to infiltrate the US military command and control centers in recent years.
On another occasion, referring to the US’ GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), commonly labelled as the "Mother Of All Bombs", which the US Air Force first used it to pound tunnels in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province this April, Amir Ali Hajizadeh boasted of Iran's success in developing a bigger bomb and dubbed it as the “Father of All Bombs”.