By Jonathan Saul
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s security forces have arrested seven Jerusalem residents over allegations they were planning to assassinate Israeli officials and carry out other attacks on behalf of Iran’s intelligence service, the Shin Bet and police said on Tuesday.
The incident is the fifth case involving attempted assassinations directed by Iranian intelligence that has been thwarted by Israeli security services in the past month, a joint police and Shin Bet statement said.
The seven suspects, residents of the mainly Palestinian neighbourhood of Beit Safafa in Jerusalem, were planning to carry out the assassination of a senior Israeli scientist and the mayor of a major city in Israel which was not named, the statement said.
“Scientists and mayors, as well as senior members of the security establishment and other senior Israeli officials, are attack targets by Iranian elements,” a senior Shin Bet source said separately, citing information from the security services.
Iran’s foreign ministry was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday.
The security services’ investigation also established that the suspects were also tasked with blowing up a police vehicle and throwing a grenade into a house with a promise of receiving 200,000 shekels, the statement said.
One of the suspects, a 23-year old, was in contact with a foreign entity. The individual subsequently recruited a ring of helpers who set fire to a vehicle in Jerusalem, sprayed graffiti at various locations and gathered intelligence in Israel at the direction of Iranian officials abroad.
During a search of the suspects’ homes, security forces found 50,000 shekels ($13,240) in cash, a fake police car licence plate and various credit cards.
Their detention was extended until Oct. 24 and an indictment was expected to be served by the Jerusalem district prosecutor’s office for “serious security offences”, the statement said.
On Monday, Israel’s security services said they had broken up a spy ring gathering information for Iranian intelligence, which followed a separate arrest in September of an Israeli citizen suspected of involvement in an Iran-backed assassination plot against prominent people including the prime minister.
Israel has a long history of intelligence operations in Iran, allegedly including the assassination in July of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in a Tehran state guesthouse. Israel has made no claim of responsibility for that killing.
($1 = 3.7762 shekels)
(Reporting by Jonathan Saul in Jerusalem, additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai, Editing by William Maclean)
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