Foiled Israeli sabotage, result of years of intelligence

Speaking in a live interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN) on Thursday night, Deputy Defense Minister Brigadier General Reza Talaei-Nik has revealed more details about a failed Israeli sabotage against the Iranian defense industry, noting that faulty parts were detected before installation.

"Nine years ago, our colleagues were working on one of the networks of the enemy ... when they found that the Zionist regime's Mossad was focusing on some subjects in the defense industry including the connector," he said, referring to the faulty part that a professional network plotted to introduce to the country's defense industry.

"Our intelligence forces detected the connectors before they entered the missile system," he highlighted.

He also noted that the experts of the ministry managed to detach the faulty section from the connectors and rebuild and use them again.

The equipped connectors could cause an explosion within a determined period, Talaei-Nik said.

The first achievement of Iran's intelligence community was that "the enemy did not understand that we have detected [their plot] which means that they wanted to surprise us with an operation on defense systems but they were taken by surprise."

The spokesman for the Iranian Defense Ministry noted that the plot would have incurred a loss of some $19 million if it had succeeded as planned.

Lauding the Iranian experts' achievements in attaining self-sufficiency in producing more than 90% of needed parts in the defense industry, he said that enemies seek to "undermine this deterrence and defense power."

Talaei-Nik also underscored that Iran will not hesitate to take serious legal actions against the countries that have collaborated with Israel in the plot.

He also referred to a civilian individual who helped identify the plot. Talaei-Nik highlighted that the individual worked as a tradesperson, and his suspicions were drawn after the foreign supplier of the components and equipped parts started to closely monitor Iran’s domestic market and the distributors of the parts.

Accordingly, the individual notified officials in the Intelligence Organization of the Defense Ministry of the matter, he added.

The senior Iranian defense official went on to say that the Iranian intelligence officials, who had already been tipped off, utilized the information to identify the rest of the network.

The failed plot was revealed on Thursday by the Iranian Defense Ministry. An official in the ministry said that due to the effectiveness of Iran’s missile power in creating deterrence against enemy threats, its missile industry has always been among the targets of enemy spy services.

The source explained that in recent years, a series of intelligence and security initiatives were developed and executed under the guise of procuring components, deceiving the spy services of enemies.

“The network, acting under direct orders from Mossad, sought to sell these equipped parts to transform the produced missiles into explosive devices, posing a threat to both industrial facilities and the employees working in the sector,” the source stated.