Iran detains leader of US-based exile group over 2008 bomb attack
- Iranian state media said Jamshid Sharmahd of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran was behind the bombing in a mosque in Shiraz that killed 14 people
- The California-based opposition group seeks to restore Iran’s monarchy that was overthrown in 1979
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry also alleged Jamshid Sharmahd of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran planned other attacks around the Islamic republic amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the US over its collapsing 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
It remains unclear how Sharmahd, whom Iran accused of running the opposition group’s Tondar militant wing, ended up detained by intelligence officials. Requests for comment sent by email to the Glendora-based Kingdom Assembly of Iran were not immediately answered and a telephone number for the group no longer worked.
Iranian state television broadcast a report on Sharmahd’s arrest, linking him to the 2008 bombing of the Hosseynieh Seyed al-Shohada Mosque in Shiraz. It also said his group was behind a 2010 bombing at Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mausoleum in Tehran that wounded several people.
The report also alleged without providing evidence that Tondar, or “Thunder” in Farsi, also plotted attacks on a dam and planned to use cyanide bombs at Tehran’s annual book fair.
State TV’s Telegram channel posted a photo of a blindfolded Sharmahd and said it was the first photo of him since his arrest by the Intelligence Ministry’s forces.