Iran arrests 7, kills 4 over alleged Israel links in southeast
According to a spokesperson, an elite military unit killed four “terrorists affiliated with the Zionist regime” and arrested seven others in the province that is home to a separatist group.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced Wednesday it had arrested and killed several individuals allegedly linked to Israel during the past two days in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan.
Gen. Ahmad Shafaei, a spokesperson for the IRGC’s ground forces, said in a statement carried by Iran's state PressTV that an elite IRGC unit killed four “terrorists affiliated with the Zionist regime” and arrested seven others in the province bordering Pakistan, though it did not provide evidence on the alleged Israel link.
He added that five other people had turned themselves in to security forces in the province in the past 48 hours.
Shafaei explained that the arrests came as part of an ongoing operation dubbed “Martyrs of Security,” which began Oct. 31 in areas he did not specify to “strengthen and bolster lasting security.”
The IRGC’s Saberin units and other forces are participating in the operation along with provincial security forces in Sistan and Baluchistan, according to Shafaei.
Sistan and Baluchistan province is home to the ethnic Sunni Baluch community, which has suffered years of repression and marginalization under Iran’s successive Shiite regimes.
The Baluchi separatist group Jaish al-Adl, which is fighting for independence from Iran, has repeatedly attacked Iranian security forces in the province.
Most recently on Oct. 26, the group claimed responsibility for an attack in the province’s Taftan county that killed at least 10 Iranian police officers.
On Jan. 16, the IRGC struck sites belonging to Jaish al-Adl in Pakistan’s Balochistan province using missiles and drones.
Growing Iran-Israel tensions
Iranian authorities are stepping up their operations against people suspected of spying for Israel following a serious of large-scale tit-for-tat strikes between Iran and Israel in April and October.
On Nov. 2, the IRGC announced that the operation's forces dismantled four “terrorist teams acting as proxies for the enemy” without further specifying.
Another 12 people suspected of collaborating with Israel and planning attacks inside Iran were arrested in September across six provinces.
“As the Zionist regime and their Western backers, most notably the United States, have not succeeded in their sinister goals against the people of Gaza and Lebanon, they are now seeking to spread the crisis to Iran with a series of actions planned against our country's security,” the IRGC said in a statement.
In December 2023, Iranian authorities executed four people convicted of spying for Israel.
Tensions between Iran and Israel have surged in the past year since the Iranian-backed Hamas group launched its surprise assault on south Israel Oct. 7, 2023, triggering the ongoing Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Last month, Israel launched two waves of airstrikes across Iran, hitting several military targets, in retaliation for an Oct. 1 Iranian attack in which the IRGC fired ballistic missile at Israel in response to its killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and IRGC Deputy Commander Abbas Nilforoushan on Sept. 27 in an airstrike in Beirut.
The IRGC launched its first direct attack on Israel in April, launching hundreds of drones in response to a suspected Israeli strike on the Iranian Consulate in Damascus that killed at least seven people, including two IRGC commanders.
