Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said it had foiled a number of bombing and terrorist attack plots across the country. In a statement on Monday, the ministry said the operation was one of the biggest of its kind against Takfiri terrorists in Tehran and some other provinces.
Takfiri is a common Shiite reference to Sunni Muslims who accuse them of apostasy. The accusation itself is called takfir, derived from the word kafir (unbeliever), which sounds a lot like the Hebrew kofer-heretic. Accusing other Muslims of being takfiris is a sectarian slur, used heavily since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, in which Shiite and Suni forces are facing each other, with the Shiites being allied with the Alawites, who are an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
The only group with the authority to declare a member of an Abrahamic religion a kafir are the scholars of the ulema — Imams of important mosques, Sharia judges, and teachers of the major religious universities. But with so many splinter groups growing out of the Wahhabist/Salafist tradition and splitting mainstream Suni Islam, any Muslim today feels free to call another Muslim a takfir.
And so Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has identified the members of takfiri groups who were aiming to plant bombs in Iran “especially during the holy fasting days of Ramadan.” According to the report, those infidels were arrested, their bombs were safely detonated and their equipment was seized.
Further information will be provided after more investigations and interrogation of the culprits.
Have a joyous Ramadan.