ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Some 500 have been arrested across Iran allegedly over “collaborating with the enemy,” the country’s police chief announced Sunday, including 20 individuals considered “highly sensitive cases” over their purported connections to Iranian dissident groups and media outlets.
In an interview he gave to the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Radan stated, “We have arrested 500 individuals who were … collaborating with the enemy to compromise our national security during this time of war.”
Iran’s police chief added that “among these, 250 cases are of a very serious nature,” concerning “individuals who were providing the enemy with coordinates and sensitive data that helped guide foreign strikes against our infrastructure."
The mass arrests come as the US-Israel joint campaign against Iran entered its sixteenth day on Sunday, with the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announcing in its latest tally that the operation, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, had targeted more than 6,000 targets across Iran since its start on February 28, reiterating that the objective of the campaign is to dismantle the country’s security structure.
Radan on Sunday said the individuals who had been arrested were being charged with “providing information” through UK-based Iran International media outlet “to serve enemy purposes,” and for “being in contact with opposition groups, photographing enemy-targeted locations, sending photos and videos abroad, and attempting to disrupt public security in the country.