Iran tracks down and kills ISIL suspects after attacks

Tehran // Iran has tracked down and killed several suspected extremists including the alleged mastermind of twin attacks in Tehran last week, officials said.

Dozens of other suspects have been detained since the attacks on June 7 killed 17 people in the first assault in Iran to be claimed by ISIL.

Police killed four ISIL suspects in the southern province of Hormozgan on Sunday, police chief Azizollah Maleki said.

“Two of the killed criminals were foreign nationals ... while the identity of other members is being investigated,” Mr Maleki said, adding that weapons and an ISIL flag were seized during the raid.

Iran has said five Iranians, who had joined ISIL and travelled to its Iraq and Syria bastions, carried out the attacks on the parliament and the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

On Saturday, intelligence minister Mahmoud Alavi said the alleged mastermind behind the attacks had been tracked down and killed outside the country.

“The mastermind who controlled the team ... who had fled outside the country ... paid the price for his crimes, with the cooperation of intelligence services of allied countries,” Mr Alavi told state television.

At least 41 ISIL suspects have been arrested since the attacks, according to Mr Alavi, who said Iran had dismantled suspected extremist cells with increasing frequency in recent months.

In the entire year to March 2017 “we dismantled 45 cells, while in the past two-and-a-half months alone we have dismantled more than 25 terrorist cells”, he said.

Officials have reported the arrests of suspected ISIL members in and around Tehran, as well as in the country’s centre, southern governorates, and western provinces near the Iraqi border.

* Agence France-Presse