Iran foils assassination plot against clerics, judges, IRGC

Esmail Khatib made the remarks during a speech in the holy city of Mashhad on Thursday, according to the Press TV website.

The plot, which had been devised for implementation "on September 30," had been hatched towards "fueling ethnic and religious differences" in the country, he said.

"The enemies are after afflicting the country's eastern borders with insecurity," Khatib noted, urging vigilance on the part of Shia and Sunni clerics as well as relevant authorities.

The remarks came after the Intelligence Ministry released a statement, announcing that its agents had managed to frustrate a plot aimed at triggering as many as "30 simultaneous explosions" throughout the capital Tehran.

Twenty-eight terrorists were arrested in connection with the plot, which had sought to target the city's "populous centers," the statement noted.

The explosions in question had sought to send across a false image of the prevalence of insecurity in the country, sow despair and fear across the society, and trigger chaos and protest, the ministry said.

The plot had been designed for implementation on the anniversary of last year's foreign-backed riots throughout the country, it stated.

The riots spread out throughout the country last September following the unfortunate death that month of a young girl named Mahsa Amini.

Amini fainted at a police station and was pronounced dead days later at a Tehran hospital. An investigation attributed her death to a medical condition, dismissing allegations that she had been beaten by police forces.

Iran says the 2022 riots were the result of foreign-backed elements exploiting the incident.

Also recently, the Intelligence Ministry managed to discover 400 bombs, dozens of which had been planned to be set off across religious gatherings across the nation.

Addressing the issue of the foiled bombing plots, Khatib recently said, "We receive many reports saying that they (the enemies) are trying to take advantage of another [wave of] fabricated riots. During this time, we collected about 400 bombs, including more than 40 which were supposed to be set off in mourning congregations of the first 10 days of [the lunar calendar month of] Muharram."

MNA/PR