What's behind Saudi claims about the detention of IRGC members?

In a latest anti-Iranian move and in a clear propaganda act to increase international pressures on Iran, Saudi officials have claimed that they arrested some IRGC members trying to do sabotage acts in their territories. This is while the Saudi coast guard is accused to illegally open fire on some Iranian fishermen, killing one of them.

کد خبر: ۷۰۵۴۴۶

تاریخ: ۳۰ خرداد ۱۳۹۶ - ۱۷:۳۹

Tabnak – In a latest anti-Iranian move and in a clear propaganda act to increase international pressures on Iran, Saudi officials have claimed that they arrested some IRGC members trying to do sabotage acts in their territories. This is while the Saudi coast guard is accused to illegally open fire on some Iranian fishermen, killing one of them.

The Saudi navy claimed on Monday that it had captured three members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards from a boat seized last week as the vessel approached Saudi Arabia’s offshore Marjan oilfield, Riyadh has said.

The Saudi Information and Culture Ministry said in a statement quoted by Agence France-Presse that three captured Iranians, identified as members of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, had been caught late Friday as their boat approached the Saudi-owned Marjan oil field in the Gulf. The ministry said the captives were "being questioned by Saudi authorities.”

The ministry claimed the boat’s cargo had made it "clear this was intended to be a terrorist act in Saudi territorial waters designed to cause severe damage to people and property.”

However, an official of the Iranian Interior Ministry denied the Saudi claims about the recent incident. Majid Aqa-Babaei, the ministry’s director general for border affairs, told the Young Journalists Club on Monday, that, "Saudi Arabia’s claim about the arrest of Iranian military forces is not true.”

Aqa-Babaei had on Saturday said that the Saudi coastguard had opened fire on Iranian fishing boats in the waters south of Iran, killing one fisherman.

In a separate interview with the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) on Monday, Aqa-Babaei confirmed that three Iranians — all known fishermen from the southern Iranian city of Bushehr — had been taken into custody by the Saudi coastguard.

In an analysis of the issue, Press TV writes that Saudi rulers have interpreted US President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Riyadh as some kind of a green light to pursue their policies more aggressively.

The killing of the Iranian fisherman and the arrest of the other three came following that trip and also after Saudi Arabia led a group of its vassal states in cutting ties with Qatar.

While the Saudi-led bloc of countries have accused Doha of sponsoring terrorism, most observers say the severance of ties and an accompanying economic war on Qatar have to do with the fact that Doha pursues its relations with Iran more independently of Riyadh.

A Saudi minister said last month that his country would work to move "the battle” to Iran. Another Saudi minister said on June 6 that Iran had to be "punished” for what he called interference in the region.

Hours later, two terrorist attacks hit the Iranian capital, Tehran, killing 18 people and wounding 50 other people. Daesh said it had carried out the attacks.