Iranian authorities announced Tuesday the dismantling of several cells allegedly linked to the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), considered a terrorist group by Tehran.
The Iranian Intelligence Ministry has indicated that «multiple operational sleeper cells linked to the PMOI terrorist group have been identified and dismantled by intelligence forces».
It detailed that the operations were carried out in Tehran, Isfahan and the Kurdistan region, before pointing out that ten suspects were arrested during the operations, according to the Iranian news agency Mehr.
Finally, the Intelligence Ministry stated that «all terrorist activities (by these dismantled cells) were carried out under direct orders from the PMOI stronghold in Albania».
Albania announced in September its severance of relations with Iran following an investigation into a cyber-attack recorded in July 2022, a decision branded «reckless and short-sighted» by Tehran.
The PMOI, which actively participated in the revolution that overthrew Shah Reza Pahlevi with an Islamist discourse mixed with an adaptation of Marxist ideology, fought on the side of Saddam Hussein’s regime in the war with Iran between 1980 and 1988 after denouncing the actions of the religious leadership installed by the ayatollahs.
The group was persecuted by the religious authorities in Iran, which led the then leader of the group, Masud Rajavi, to reach a pact with Hussein in 1986 in the middle of the war between the two, after which the then supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, ordered the execution of alleged members and sympathizers of the organization.
