Iranian media reports say Iranian intelligence forces dismantled two teams affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terror group in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan.

Mehr news agency reports that the Sistan and Baluchistan Province's Intelligence Office said in the statement that two teams affiliated with the ISIL terror group were dismantled in the province.

Tasnim news agency says the two terrorist rings were dismantled in a joint operation by the Intelligence Ministry, the IRGC, and the police.

The rings were directed by foreign forces, had sought to cause insecurity in the southeastern parts of the country in recent months before they were identified and smashed by Iranian security and intelligence forces, says the report released by Tasnim news agency.

One of the objectives of the rings reportedly was taking foreign nationals and businessmen hostage in the southeastern port of Chabahar.

According to Mehr news agency, the two terrorist rings were receiving orders from “a network of regional western countries and Arab states, as well as the Zionist Israeli regime.”

Iranian media reports note that some arrested members of the "terrorist" gangs, who are Afghan and Tajik citizens, confessed to having hatched extensive plots to "instigate insecurity" in southeastern Iran. 

Recall, Iranian media outlets, citing a statement by the Ministry of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic of Iran, reported on November 8, 2022 that 26 persons what had a role in the October 26 terrorist attack in Shiraz have been arrested.  The investigations and operations have reportedly resulted in the identification and arrest of all elements that have masterminded, perpetrated and supported the terrorist attack.  Moreover, a number of other elements that had entered Iran for a similar operation have been detained, the statement added.

According to the Intelligence Ministry, all of the detainees are non-Iranian and are from Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan.   

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry reportedly said in statement released on November 7 that the man that fired shots at the holy shrine was identified as a Tajik citizen named Komron Subhon, operating under the alias ‘Abu Ayesha’.

Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service, known locally as Radio Ozodi, said on November 14 that a 23-year-old Komron Subhon is native of the Tajik city of Hisor.  He had previously worked as labor migrant in the Russian Federation.   When and how he ended up in Iran is reportedly unknown.  

Komron Subhon (R); photo / Tasnim

Tajik authorities do not comment on information about involvement of Komron Subhon in that terrorist attack in Iran.  

On November 14, Radio Ozodi’s reporters visited the city Hisor where the family of the alleged terrorist lives, but relatives and friends of Komron Subhon refused to speak to the reporters.  

As it became known to Radio Ozodi, he went to work in Moscow in 2019 preferring labor migration to studying at the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Service.  Until August of 2022, he reportedly was in constant contact with his relatives and friends.  

Radio Ozodi says Komron’s parents refused to talk to its reporters, “therefore, it's hard to say if he was a supporter of any radical religious movement or not.”  

Meanwhile, judging by the photo he was a supporter of the Salafi group.  It is to be noted that while posing for pictures Salafists raise the index finger.

As far is raising the index finger in tashahhud (greeting -- the portion of the Muslim service where the person kneels or sits on the ground facing the qibla, glorifies God, and greets the messenger and the righteous people of God followed by the two testimonials) in Sunni Islam is concerned, raising the index finger in tashahhud is sunnat in the Shafi’i Madhhab, but it is not permissible in the Hanafi Madhhab.

In Tajikistan, the overwhelming majority of the population adheres to the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam, and approximately 4 percent of Muslims are Ismaili Shia, the majority of whom reside in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO).