Largest operation to smuggle arms into Iran thwarted in Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah

The largest arms smuggling operation has been thwarted amid a surge in the illegal influx of weapons into Iran during the past few months, according to local Iranian media.

According to Press TV, a report on the Tabnak website on Friday carried a few photos of the cache of arms confiscated by security agencies in Suleimaniyah, a city in the east of the Kurdistan region of Iraq. No further details were provided.

Earlier on Saturday, Iran's intelligence forces said that in a security operation, they managed to dismantle an international arms and ammunition smuggling band in southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan Province.

The weapons confiscated from the smuggling gang were transferred to the country to be used in the recent foreign-backed riots in Iran.

IRGC forces also, in another operation, detained an agent of the intelligence service of one of the Persian Gulf states who was planning to carry out anti-security measures in the west of Hormozgan Province.

Also earlier in October, IRGC's Hamzeh Seyyed al-Shohada Base said a gang was intercepted by the IRGC forces as it was looking to smuggle arms into the country from the northwestern borders.

Nine Heckler & Koch G3 rifles and a large cache of ammunition were seized from their possession, according to the statement.

The statement noted that by providing arms to terrorists agents inside Iran, the enemy aimed to “disrupt public security,” disseminate fake news about riots and death toll and use the issue for political gains.

The raid on the arms smuggling group comes as terrorist groups have in recent weeks ramped up their activities to undermine the security of the country by supporting deadly riots that sparked in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old Iranian woman collapsed at a police station and died in hospital three days later despite full medical care.

Back in October, Iran’s Legal Medicine Organization released the results of its investigation into the case, saying Amini's death had been caused by illness rather than alleged blows to the head or other vital body organs as the Western media outlets and their allies had been propagating.

The foreign-backed violent riots have in the past two months claimed hundreds of lives belonging to both security forces and ordinary people.

ME