TEHRAN, July 16: Iran dismantled an Al Qaeda cell in the east of the country in recent days that was preparing to launch attacks, Intelligence Minister Ali Younessi told the student news agency ISNA on Saturday.

Al Qaeda had ‘organized and formed different groups to carry out terrorist acts primarily in the east of the country’, the minister said.

The cell was discovered last week, the minister said, but he did not specify whether the group planned to attack Iran or another country.

The militant network had sought out ‘theology students and religious Sunnis’, he added.

Mr Younessi said the formation of this network constituted the ‘fifth wave’ of Al Qaeda actions in the Islamic republic since the 2001 demise of the Taliban.

Since then, the minister said about a thousand Al Qaeda operatives have been ‘identified, arrested, extradited or judged, and at the present time 200 of them are still in prison’.

The figure is the highest announced by Iranian authorities to date.

Mr Younessi said Iran was first subjected to an influx of ‘several thousand Afghans and other nationals’ who came into the country illegally after the fall of the Taliban, and who were later sent back out.

Then, some Al Qaeda operatives who had taken refuge in Iranian cities were arrested ‘because they intended to use Iranian territory to launch terrorist strikes on other countries’, he said.

“The third wave of Al Qaeda was operating mainly under the cover of Ansar al Islam, which is based in Iraq. We arrested and tried a number of this group’s militants, who are still in prison,” he said.

According to Mr Younessi, Al Qaeda members were then linked to a criminal and drug-trafficking gang planning attacks in Tehran and other large cities. “These elements were also arrested and imprisoned,” he said, adding that their chief was still on the loose. —AFP