Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi on Sunday praised the Intelligence Ministry’s “decisive” move to arrest the ringleader of a “US-based terrorist and sabotage group called Tondar,” ISNA, the government-controlled Iranian Students News Agency, reported.
According to ISNA, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry announced in a statement on Saturday that “intelligence forces have dealt a heavy and serious blow to the terrorist group based in the US. Following sophisticated intelligence operations, the forces arrested Jamshid Sharmahd who led his terrorist operations from the US. He was responsible for 2008 blast in Seyyed al-Shohada Mosque in Shiraz which left 14 people martyred and 215 other injured.”
The terrorist group had also planned to carry out several large-scale operations in recent years which have been foiled, including bombing Sivand Dam in Shiraz, Imam Khomeini Mausoleum, and the Tehran Book Fair.
Mousavi said in a statement: “The US regime considers itself to be standing by the Iranian people while it harbors and supports in different ways notorious terrorists and those who have claimed responsibility for several terrorist operations inside Iran and who have the blood of innocent Iranian people and citizens on their hands.”
Mousavi expressed the Islamic Republic’s “strong protest” at the US government, and said, “The regime (that’s the US – DI) must be held accountable for supporting this terrorist grouplet and other outfits as well as criminals that lead sabotage, armed and terrorist operations from within the United States against the Iranian people and shed the blood of Iranian citizens.”