July 24, 2020
The Intelligence Ministry says it has arrested a gang that was plotting to blow up a dormitory at the Iran University of Science & Technology in Tehran (IUST) as part of a scheme to provoke unrest and disrupt the events marking National Students Day on December 7.
The ministry announced it had broken up the plot December 5. It didn’t say how many people were arrested, nor did it blame any group or foreign country, as it normally does. It said the plotters had planned to set off natural gas in a pipeline going into the dorm’s kitchen. The very next day, 11 people were killed and 42 injured when a gas pipe exploded in a building where a wedding was underway in Saqqez, a predominantly Kurdish city. Gas pipe explosions are fairly common in Iran.