In 2023 Iran’s Intelligence Ministry arrested about 200 members of the Daesh terrorist group planning to foment chaos and instability during the practices of Arba’een, which marks the fortieth day after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (AS). Commanders of the IRGC in Tehran, Esmail Khatib declared terrorist groups and hostile states were orchestrating inhuman conspiracies against the Islamic Republic and the West Asia region.

He conveyed that 200 Daesh terrorists entered the country to carry out destabilising activities in Iran, neighbouring Iraq, and the area during the Arba’een rituals. Most of the plots have been neutralized with the counter-terrorism procedures and arrests by Iranian security forces, he explained. Khatib also emphasised the cooperation between the Intelligence Ministry and the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in the war against terrorism and separatist parties.

Arba’een brings together millions of people from across the world who launch an 80-km walk between the holy Iraqi municipalities of Najaf and Karbala. Last year, Iran’s government spokesperson expressed more than three million Iranian pilgrims had herded to neighbouring Iraq to partake in the annual Arba’een commemorations, setting a new record.

Khatib also expressed the Intelligence Ministry has captured spies from Sweden, France and Britain, adding that a number of them have been achieved despite foreign pressures.

“Today, the power of the country’s intelligence organizations is such that they have captured spies from France, Sweden, the UK, and many other countries,”

Iran’s intelligence minister expressed.

Khatib highlighted that a number of those spies have been convicted to death despite foreign pressures and have been performed. Elsewhere in his remarks, the Iranian intelligence minister indicated the internal crises in the Israeli regime and expressed the occupying entity is on the verge of collapse.

“The problem that the Zionist regime is facing daily is the result of the resistance put up by Martyr Soleimani’s efforts,”

Khatib expressed, referring to the late commander of the Quds Force of IRGC, General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a 2020 US drone attack in Iraq.

“The Zionist regime, which once declared to be the fourth power in the world today, speaks of its internal corrosion. From its president to other officials, everyone is speaking about the fact that this regime is collapsing,”

he stated. According to a new poll recently performed by the so-called Israel Democracy Institute, the majority of Israelis think the regime is on the verge of economic, social, and political defeat due in large part to the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist coalition cabinet.