Foiled Terrorist Plot Could Have Affected Iran Nuclear Talks
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A terrorist plot thwarted by Iranian police forces earlier this month could have affected the nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers.
According to Brigadier General Qassem Rezaei, the commander of Iran's border police, terrorists had planned to carry out attacks in the country's southeast, including Kerman province.
He made the announcement Wednesday at a ceremony in the city of Kerman to honor an Iranian soldier killed during a mission against the plot devised by the Jaish-ul-Adl terrorist group for the end of the holy month of Ramadan (Mid-July).
The terrorists, who were carrying large amounts of explosives, had been trained and intended to carry out a suicide mission in the southeast of the country, said the Iranian commander, adding that three terrorists were captured, two of whom were injured.
The terrorists could have brought about "100 large blasts" in the region that would have caused "great damage", Press TV quoted him as saying.
The Iranian forces "received information about a terrorist group planning to enter the country," Rezaei said, adding that one of the guards spotted them upon entry through the border with Pakistan.
Rezaei quoted one of the captured terrorists as saying that if the plot had not been foiled, the terrorist mission could have been "influential in the outcome of negotiations" between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, Britain, the US, France and Germany) over Iran's nuclear energy program.
Tehran and the Group 5+1 (also known as the P5+1 or E3+3) on July 14 concluded more than two weeks of intensive talks in Vienna, Austria. The negotiations resulted in a comprehensive 159-page document on Iran’s nuclear program.
In recent years, the Jaish-ul-Adl group has been engaged in terrorist attacks as well as other criminal activities in Iran, mostly in the border province of Sistan and Baluchestan; however, this time they had aimed for Kerman, situated further west.
On February 6, 2014, the terror group abducted five Iranian border guards in the Jakigour region of Iran's southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan and took them to Pakistan.
On October 25, 2013, Jaish-ul-Adl killed 14 Iranian border guards and wounded six others in the border region near the city of Saravan in Sistan and Baluchestan.