Iran claims to have killed member of separatist group with ties to Israel
State media outlets reports two other people arrested after infiltrating from Iraqi Kurdistan with plan to cause ‘riots, terror and insecurity’
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TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian state media on Wednesday said intelligence services killed a member of a separatist group, which it accuses of links to Israel, and arrested two others in the country’s northwest.
“Intelligence service agents killed one of the main members of this terrorist group, and two others were arrested,” state television reported, adding that their weapons had been seized.
It said they were detected trying to enter Iran’s West Azerbaijan province from northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, where several exiled Iranian Kurdish groups are based, “with the aim of causing riots, terror and insecurity.”
It did not specify what group the members belonged to, only claiming that it was a “group affiliated with the Zionist regime.”
Iran regularly accuses Kurdish groups in Iraq of staging cross-border attacks and, since 2022, of fueling the protests sparked by the death in custody of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.
The reported execution comes days after Israel carried out targeted strikes on Iranian military assets on Saturday, in retaliation for the massive ballistic missile attack launched by Tehran on October 1.
Some 200 ballistic missiles were launched by Iran on October 1, causing relatively minor damage to military bases and some residential areas, and killing a Palestinian man in the West Bank.
In an hourslong operation early Saturday morning, dozens of Israeli aircraft targeted strategic military sites across Iran — specifically drone and ballistic missile manufacturing and launch sites, as well as air defense batteries — with explosions reported in the Tehran, Karaj, Isfahan and Shiraz areas.
Tehran frequently claims to foil Mossad operations in the country, although the veracity of such claims is unclear.
Iran in January claimed it carried out strikes on what it said was the “headquarters of the Zionist regime’s spies” in northern Iraq, referring to the Mossad.
In the same month, it said that it had executed four men for collaborating with Israel on a plan to bomb an Iranian Defense Ministry center in Isfahan, central Iran.
The Times of Israel Community.