Iran says it arrested, transferred Kerman terror attack mastermind to Tehran

By Syed Zafar Mehdi

TEHRAN (AA) - Iran claimed Saturday to have secured the arrest of the alleged mastermind behind the terror attacks in the southeastern city of Kerman in January that killed more than 90 victims.

The Intelligence Ministry announced in a statement that the "most important recent achievement" was the transfer of the head plotter, Abdullah Quetta, to Iran from an unmaned country.

It said information obtained from Quetta was instrumental in "uncovering many terrorist conspiracies" and "identifying other key elements and their hiding places."

The statement was accompanied by photographs of the alleged terror mastermind, including one of him blindfolded and handcuffed as he disembarked from a plane, likely in Tehran.

On Jan. 3, on the anniversary of the assassination of Iran’s top military commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, two suicide bombings ripped through the city of Kerman.

Ninety-one victims were killed and more than 280 injured in the attacks, according to officials.

Soleimani, the former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, was killed in a US drone strike outside the Baghdad International Airport in January 2020.

The Daesh/ISIS terror group claimed responsibility for the attacks in Kerman, asserting that more than 300 victims were killed in the bombings.

The group identified the bombers as Omer al-Mohed and Safiullah Mujahid, who it said detonated explosive vests in a massive crowd that had gathered to mark the anniversary of Soleimani’s death.

The Intelligence Ministry confirmed that the explosions were suicide attacks and identified one of the attackers as a Tajik national.

A report in Pakistani media said Saturday that an individual by the name of Abdullah was arrested by Pakistani police and handed to Iranian authorities under a mutual understanding between the two sides.

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry, meanwhile, also reported that its counter-terrorism unit conducted 79 operations against terrorists between May 22 and July 6, thwarting plots to carry out attacks in the provinces of Tehran, Alborz, Qazvin, Khorasan Razavi, Fars, Sistan and Baluchestan and Hormozgan.

It said dozens of terrorists were arrested during the operations and a large cache of ammunition was recovered and defused.