Iran has arrested a U.S.-based political activist on terororism charges.
The Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) put out a statement.
“Jamshid Sharmahd, the ringleader of the terrorist Tondar (Thunder) group, who directed armed and terrorist acts in Iran from America, was arrested following a complicated operation, and is now in (our agents’) powerful hands,” it said. Television showed a video of a man identifying himself as Sharmahd and giving his date of birth. The man was later shown with a blindfold, saying: “They needed explosives and we provided it.”
The Iranian ministry statement said Sharmahd planned and directed an explosion at a religious center in the southern city of Shiraz in 2008 that killed 14 people and wounded 215.
It said Iranian intelligence had prevented several other plots in more recent years, including one, at an unspecified date, to blow up the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic.
‘Violence Prone Group’
Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi called Tondar the “most violence-prone” royalist opposition group.
“Despite our complaint to Interpol, Sharmahd would travel everywhere under his own name. This shows how empty anti-terror slogans by Americans and their Europeans allies are,” he told state TV.
Source: Iran says it has detained U.S.-based opposition leader over 2008 bomb attack – Reuters
