Security forces in Iran have arrested dozens of spies working in state bodies, Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said on Tuesday. the move comes at a time of rising tensions between Iran and the West following the reimposition of US sanctions on Iran.
Alavi did not say when the arrests took place or which countries the spies were allegedly working for, but indicated that many were dual nationals.
"I have repeatedly asked people to inform us if they know of any dual nationals. The Intelligence Ministry's anti-espionage unit has successfully identified and arrested dozens of spies in different governmental bodies," Alavi was quoted as saying by the semi-official news agency ISNA on Tuesday.
Arrests of dual nationals have increased since Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said there had been "infiltration" by Western agents in Iranian decision-making bodies.
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least 30 dual nationals in recent years, mostly on espionage charges.
Tensions between Iran and some Western countries have risen since May, when US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran and reimposed some of the US sanctions that had been lifted in return for restrictions on the Iranian nuclear program.
Iran does not recognize dual nationalities and does not routinely announce arrests or charges of dual nationals, whose rights to consular assistance are enshrined in the UN Vienna Convention.
Alavi also said, "You have recently heard that we brought under our control a member of a cabinet of a powerful country," but did not say which country.
Some Iranian media said Alavi was referring to a former Israeli energy minister who was accused of serving as an Iranian agent in June by Israel's internal security services.
Gonen Segev, energy minister from 1995-1996, had been living in Nigeria, where he made contact with officials at the Iranian Embassy in 2012, according to Israeli investigators.
He had been jailed in Israel in 2004 after being convicted of attempting to smuggle Ecstasy pills into the country. He left Israel in 2007 after his release from prison.
Alavi said that this month security forces arrested a member of the Islamic State militant group in southern Iran and disbanded a "terrorist cell" in the country's north.
He said his ministry had foiled several plots to bomb metro stations and universities, without making any of the incidents public at the time.
Under Islamic State's hard-line Sunni Muslim ideology, Shiites – the majority in Iran – are considered apostates. Last year, Islamic State militants carried out attacks on the parliament in Tehran and the mausoleum of the founder of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. At least 18 people were killed in the attacks.
