Tehran: The Iranian authorities have arrested four people, who they say were paid by a Kurdish militant, based in Britain, to carry out assassinations.
"Iran's Intelligence Ministry says it has arrested four Britain-linked terrorists in the western city of Marivan, who carried out five assassinations in the last two years," the state-run Press TV reported on Thursday on its website.
The report stated that the men were paid by a commander of Komala, an Iranian Kurdish group, it described as a ‘terrorist’ organisation, which it said has carried out assassinations in western Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
It said the men were all members of Komala and received weapons and cash on the Iran-Iraq border, to carry out their attacks, but it did not say who their victims were.
Iranian forces sometimes clash with Kurdish guerrillas who operate out of bases in northern Iraq.
The news came on the day the Iranians traditionally commemorate the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran after the 1979 revolution, which has come to symbolise the Islamic Republic's resistance to what they see as Western aggression. The embassy building is referred to in Iran as the ‘Den of Espionage’.
The Press TV report played up the UK link, saying that Britain "funded and supported certain terrorist groups against the Islamic Republic".
Unlike the United States, Britain still has diplomatic relations with Iran.
The head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, John Sawers, said in a speech last week that, "intelligence-led operations" were needed to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb.
