Iran on Sunday claimed to have caught three “Israeli spies” during a joint operation with Afghanistan’s Taliban.
According to the state television, the three persons are said to be of Iranian nationality and were allegedly working for Israel’s Mossad spy agency.
The “three Mossad agents” were detained in the mountainous region between the two countries, the broadcaster said.
It said that the three had been “planning to launch kamikaze drone attacks from the Afghan border towards targets in Iran”.
They “will be transferred to Iran for interrogation”, it reported, without elaborating.
Taliban officials in Iran
The development came a day after a Taliban delegation arrived in Tehran on Saturday for meetings with top officials including Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
This isn’t the first time that Iran has claimed to have foiled Israeli activities in its land.
In August, Iranian security services claimed to have thwarted an Israeli conspiracy to sabotage its ballistic missile production. Several people were arrested.
Tehran also accused Israel of being behind a January drone attack on a defence ministry site in the central province of Isfahan.
Israel-Iran ties
Iran and Israel share acrimonious relations due to the latter’s conflict with Palestine. Tehran also doesn’t recognise Israel and both have engaged in a shadow war for years.
Iran and Israel have been in conflict since the 1979 Iranian revolution, though there has never been an outright war between the two.
However, Iran does support proxies in the region, including Hezbollah, the Shia militant group in southern Lebanon, and also funds the Hamas terror group, according to experts.
Notably, both used to have strong economic and strategic ties. Iran imported Israeli arms and Israel bought Iranian oil before the Iranian revolution in 1979. Both countries also had close ties with the US and considered fighting the Soviet Union and the spread of communism part of their foreign policy, according to the US Institute for Peace.
But the 1979 revolution brought in a hard-line Shia government that considered Israel usurpers on Muslim land — and considered the US an enabler.
(With inputs from agencies)
