TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence has categorically dismissed any speculations on the arrest of the ringleader of the US-based Tondar (Thunder) terrorist group in Tajikistan.
The ministry issued a statement on August 2 refusing claims made by certain media that the group’s ringleader, Jamshid Sharmahd was arrested in Tajikistan, Mehr News Agency (MNA) reported.
Any official information about Sharmahd’s arrest will be published through the Public Relations Department of the ministry, said the statement.
The Ministry announced I another statement on Saturday that Sharmahd who was arrested “in complicated operations launched by the security forces,” had directed “armed operations and acts of sabotage” inside Iran from the US in the past.
The statement did not elaborate on where or when the leader of the group, also known as the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, was arrested but said that he had orchestrated the April 12, 2008 bombing in a Husseynieh in Shiraz that killed 14 people and wounded 215.
Tondar had plotted several abortive “big operations” including blowing up the Sivand dam in Shiraz, detonating “cyanide bombs” at a Tehran book fair, and planting an explosive device at the mausoleum of the founder of Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, said the statement.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif lashed out at Western countries for financing and harboring terrorists in a post on his Twitter account late on Saturday saying, “The west must cease financing and harboring terrorists.”
- source : Iran Daily, Irannews
