TEHRAN (AFP) -- Iran on Tuesday foiled a rebel plan to carry out a terrorist act in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan.

“Iranian intelligence agents, in their latest operation, have prevented a terrorist act by an anti-revolutionary group,” Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie was quoted as saying by the state broadcasting website.
“They were aiming to carry out a terrorist act in the south of the (southwestern) Khuzestan province but they were arrested before carrying out any action,” he added.
Mohseni Ejeie did not give any further details on the individuals involved in the planned attack.
The province of Khuzestan borders Iraq and is home to a substantial Arab community. The provincial capital Ahvaz was the scene of deadly attacks in October 2005 and January 2006 that Iran blamed on elements linked to Britain.
Iran’s intelligence services have been on high alert against plots by its Western enemies to create instability, especially in its border regions.
“With a good intelligence supervision and cooperation... the smallest movement by the enemy inside the country is being identified and immediately their elements are apprehended,” said the minister.
He also said Iran had to be on its guard against a string of Western plans against the Islamic republic.
The first, he said, was led by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney with the help of outlawed opposition groups inside and outside Iran.
“They try to spread division and splits between forces of revolution and those loyal to the system by utilizing some naive and uninformed people,” he said.
Mohseni Ejeie said that Iran’s enemies, in particular the United States and Britain, were seeking to prepare the ground for such plans by seeking to show up the Iranian authorities as “inefficient”.
The minister said that in recent months a “number of anti-revolutionaries” had been arrested by Iran’s neighboring countries and extradited back to the Islamic Republic