Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said in a statement on Monday that the Islamic Regime had arrested 20 people alleged to be members of Israel’s Mossad.
Iran is holding an American Jewish 70-year-old man prisoner along with three other US citizens, human rights groups, lawyers, and Hostage Aid Worldwide told the New York Times.
The Jewish man, who has a jewellery business in New York, was held for questioning on alleged previous trips to Israel, rights groups, and the man’s colleagues and friends told the American outlet.
The report comes nearly a week after Israel's KAN News reported that two Jewish American nationals were among the 35 Jews who were arrested in Tehran and Shiraz last month for allegedly having ties to Israel.
Three of the US citizens are being held in jail, while the fourth has been barred from leaving the country.
Two anonymous senior Iranian officials confirmed the arrest of the New York Jewish man and a woman from California, claiming it was part of awider crackdown on an alleged network of operatives linked to the US and Israel.
'Hostage diplomacy'
The detainment comes as Iran has rechannelled efforts to target Americans, according to the New York Times.
Critics have claimed the detainments are an extension of Iran’s decades-long practice of ‘hostage diplomacy’ - where foreign nationals are held prisoner as leverage for prisoner swaps or the return of frozen funds.
The State Department confirmed it was “closing tracking” the cases of the four Americans, but added, “For privacy, safety, and operational reasons, we do not get into the details of our internal or diplomatic discussions on reported US detainees… We call on Iran to immediately release all unjustly detained individuals in Iran.”
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said in a statement on Monday that the Islamic Regime had arrested 20 people alleged to be members of Israel’s Mossad.
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