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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran says it arrested head of US-based 'terrorist group'

2020-08-02

[Rudaw] Iran
Iran

...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
said Saturday it has arrested the head of a US-based "terrorist group" accused of being behind a deadly 2008 bombing in the southern city of Shiraz and of other, abortive attacks.

The group's Jamshid Sharmahd, who was leading armed and sabotage operations inside Iran, is now in the powerful hands" of Iran's security forces, state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
said in a report citing a statement from the intelligence ministry.

The statement did not elaborate on where or when the leader of the opposition royalist group known as the Kingdom Assembly of Iran,

... Anjoman-e Padeshahi-e Iran in Farsi, the group is based in Glendora near Los Angeles, where they have a Farsi language television station serving about 600,000 Iranian expats. Their aim is to restore the Pahlavi constitutional monarchy abolished by the 1979 revolution...

or Tondar (Farsi for Thunder),

...sometimes described as a splinter of Kingdom Assembly of Iran, sometimes given as an alternate name, so who knows?

was arrested.

According to the statement, he had orchestrated the April 12, 2008 bombing in a packed mosque in Shiraz that killed 14 people and maimed 215.

Iran hanged three men convicted of the bombing in 2009, saying they had ties to the monarchist group. It said they had been taking orders from an Iranian US-backed "CIA agent" to try to assassinate a high-ranking official in Iran. They were 21-year old Mohsen Eslamian and Ali Asghar Pashtar, 20 - both university students - as well as Rouzbeh Yahyazadeh, 32. The three were found guilty of being "mohareb" (enemies of God) and "corruption on the earth" by a revolutionary court in Tehran.

Iran hanged two other convicted members of the group in 2010, who had "confessed to obtaining explosives and planning to assassinate officials".

The statement issued on Saturday said that Tondar had plotted several other "big operations" which failed. It said that Tondar had planned to blow up a dam in Shiraz, use "cyanide bombs" at a Tehran book fair, and plant an bomb at the mausoleum of the Islamic republic's founder, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

It was not clear how Iran arrested the US-based Sharmahd.

No doubt it involved a good deal of rappelling down buildings in black ninja suits with green shaheed headbands, dive rolls across open bits of landscape followed by rising alertly to one knee, then dashing off in new directions, and loud cussing while in the background dramatic explosions and bursts of gunfire made their presence known...

Iran's intelligence ministry announced the arrest of a former opposition figure in similarly mysterious circumstances in October last year. Ruhollah Zam, described as a "counter-revolutionary" by Iranian authorities, was sentenced to death last month over "corruption on earth". Zam, who reportedly lived in exile in Gay Paree, ran a channel on the Telegram messaging application called Amadnews and was accused of sparking unrest during anti-government protests last year.

Al Ahram adds:

According to the association's website, Sharmahd was born in Tehran in 1955 and grew up in an Iranian-German family before moving to the United States in 2003, where he started to voice anti-Islam and Islamic republic statements.

And from the Times of Israel:

Authorities did not elaborate on how they apprehended Sharmahd, though Iranian intelligence operatives in the past have used family members and other tricks to lure targets back to Iran or friendly countries to be captured. An alleged Iranian government operative who allegedly tried to hire a hitman to kill Sharmahd disappeared in 2010 before facing trial in California, likely having returned to Iran.

While overshadowed by other exiled opposition groups, Iran reportedly brought up the Kingdom Assembly multiple times while negotiating the terms of the 2015 deal, which saw Tehran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

A statement attributed to Tondar claimed the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist in 2010 by a remote-control bomb, though it later said it wasn’t responsible. Suspicion long has fallen on Israel for a string of assassinations targeting scientists amid concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.

🔴#Iran has reportedly arrested Jamshid Sharmahd, ringleader of a US-based terrorist group named Tondar in a “complicated intelligence operation”.

The terrorist group blamed for launching terrorist activities in Iran. pic.twitter.com/ocSLx21KMi
— Iran (@Iran) August 1, 2020

Posted by:trailing wife

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