Iranian Revolutionary Guard Arrests 12 People Accused Of Cooperating With Israel

Illustration of the convoy of Iranian IRGC troops. (Wikimedia Commons/Mohammad Sadegh Heydari)

JAKARTA - Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Sunday it had arrested 12 people on charges of being agents and working closely with Israel, causing security losses to Iran.

"Because the Zionist regime (Israel) and their Western supporters, especially the United States, have not succeeded in their evil goals against the Gaza and Lebanese people, they are now trying to spread the crisis to Iran with a series of actions planned to harm the security of our country," the IRGC said in a statement.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard added that members of the network of 12 operators were arrested in six different provinces in Iran, but did not specify when the arrests would take place.

The tensions in the Middle East have risen since thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Lebanese Hezbollah members exploded in attacks widely blamed on Israel.

Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged their toughest cross-border shots in the conflict that took place in conjunction with the nearly a year-long Gaza war.

In late July, the political leader of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran in the alleged murder of Israel by Iranian authorities. Israel does not claim responsibility for the killing.