- Iran has arrested dozens of spies, including several
who passed classified information about its nukes program to the country's
enemies, Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi said on Tuesday.
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- "The Intelligence Ministry has arrested a number
of spies that transferred Iran's nuclear intelligence (abroad),"
Yunesi
was cited as saying by the official IRNA news agency, but he did not say
when the arrests had taken place.
-
- The minister also said that many of those arrested were
linked to the Iraq-based Iranian opposition group; the People's Mujahideen
Organization (MKO).
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- "The Monafeqin (hypocrites) played the main role
in transferring the information," he said, referring to the People's
Mujahedeen, Iran's main armed opposition group based in Iraq.
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- Iranian officials brand the MKO as "hypocrites for
losing faith in the 1979 Islamic revolution. The government says that the
group has killed many prominent politicians since the revolution
began.
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- The United States accuses Iran of using its nukes program
as a cover for developing nuclear weapons, but Tehran insists the program
is strictly aimed at generating electricity.
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- The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the
MKO's political wing, has been the source of some of the most reliable
information about Iran's nukes program in recent years, as subsequently
proven by UN inspections.
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- In August 2002, the NCRI disclosed the news of two
undeclared
nuclear sites in Iran -- a massive uranium enrichment facility at Natanz
and a heavy water production plant at Arak.
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- Tehran later declared these sites to the International
Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
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- Yunessi was speaking to reporters during "government
week", when ministers habitually give a run-down of their performance
in office.
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- He also said that "the department of
counter-espionage
in the intelligence ministry possesses the most modern technology and
controls
the infiltration of foreign spying services," adding that in total
"tens of spies in all domains" had been caught.
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