Six people spying for Israel’s Mossad agency have been arrested in the province of Hamedan in western Iran, Al Jazeera reports citing Iranian state media.

The “traitor elements” were arrested in the cities of Hamedan, Razan and Nahavand in the province, Ali Akbar Karimpour, a local official with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was quoted as saying.

They are accused of engaging in “targeted activity” online with the goal of creating “public anxiety, blackening the image of the Iranian establishment, and tarnishing its image”, he added.

“Their actions were thwarted by accurate and timely intelligence forces,” Mehr News Agency reports.