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Iran's Intelligence Ministry has uncovered 'terrorist' plots targeting the country's security and stability during the presidential election.

"The ministry has dismantled the groups involved in such activities and has arrested almost all group-members in two stages," IRNA quoted Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei on Wednesday.

He said that the plots included bomb attacks on several sites in Iran, adding that those behind such activities were linked with "the Zionist and non-Zionist regimes outside the county."

One of the targets, Mohseni-Ejei said, was the holy shrine of the late founder of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini. After the plot was foiled, the assailant detonated the bomb outside the shrine and "a number of people have been arrested regarding the suicide bombing," he added.

The Intelligence Ministry and the police also seized a group who were planning terrorist activities in the East of the country and confiscated their equipment.

"The police also captured another group, which planned to carry out a terrorist act in the city of Tabriz when one of the presidential candidates wanted to make a speech there," he explained.

"Some other terrorist groups in the south of the country especially in Ahvaz were identified and nabbed before they could carry out any activities," he went on to say.

According to the intelligence minister, the US and some western countries were aiming to achieve unrest in Iran's elections atmosphere.

When asked by a reporter about the arrest of foreign spies working under the guise of reporters, Mohseni-Ejei said, "Anybody who embarks on espionage activity in the country will be arrested. A foreign reporter has so far been nabbed and another one has been questioned and his things were confiscated."

The Iranian government has arrested a reporter working for the Newsweek and another one working for the Washington Times.

CNN and other western-based media outlets have resorted to 'unreliable' sources like social network websites -- such as Twitter and Facebook -- and anonymous callers in their coverage of Iran's post-election unrest.

In line with foreign media attempts to disrupt post-election stability in Iran, CNN has broadcast a false report which contradicts footage obtained by Press TV.

CNN broadcast an interview with a so-called anonymous witness of Wednesday's protest in Tehran's Baharestan Square, with the aim of depicting Iranian security forces as villains.

Footage obtained by Press TV reporters display some 200 protesters 'illegally' gathering in front of Iran's parliament and at a nearby subway station on Wednesday, to protest the result of the June 12th election.

The CNN's report, however, contains a call from an alleged female witness in Tehran who supposedly describes the situation as the 'massacre' of protesters by the police in Baharestan Square.

The following is an excerpt from CNN newscaster's conversation with the alleged witness:

CNN: You tell us what you saw today when you tried to go to Baharestan Square?

Witness: Police stopped everyone at Sa'di. They emptied the buses that were taking people there and let the private cars go on.

All of a sudden 500 people with clubs and woods came out of Hedayat Mosque and poured into the streets. They started beating everyone and throwing them off Sa'di Bridge. This was a massacre.

CNN: We are not only getting this report from you. We got a report from another source in Tehran describing the situation today being terrible, saying people were being shot like animals; they beat people like animals. Are you safe right now?

Witness: Yes, exactly, exactly. This is what was happening. They beat people so bad.

However, Press TV, which is based in Tehran and was present at the scene, did not find even traces of the false and unfounded report.

It remains unclear, whether CNN -- which has resorted to 'unreliable' sources like social network websites in its coverage of Iran -- was duped by the 'anonymous' caller or was simply faking the phone call in line with the Western agenda of destabilizing Iran.

Iranian officials have condemned foreign media outlets including Britain's state-run BBC over dramatizing the situation in the country by provoking the post-election violence in Iran.

Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hassan Qashqavi on Sunday pinned the blame for the recent post-election turmoil across the country on US and British media outlets.

Post-election unrests were sparked after the Interior Ministry declared Ahmadinejad as the president of the country for yet another four-year term by almost two-thirds of the vote.

People have staged rallies across the country to protest the results of the election. Some of the demonstrations have turned violent.

Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal and Dick Cheney

Seymour Hersh says that Dick Cheney headed a secret assassination wing and the head of the wing has just been named as the new commander in Afghanistan.

In an interview with GulfNews on May 12, 2009 Pulitzer prize-winning American investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, said that there is a special unit called the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) that does high-value targeting of men that are known to be involved in anti-American activities, or are believed to be planning such activities.

According to Hersh, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) was headed by former US vice president Dick Cheney and the former head of JSOC, Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal who has just been named the new commander in charge of the war in Afghanistan.

McChrystal, a West Pointer who became a Green Beret not long after graduation, following a stint as a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division, is currently director of Staff at the Pentagon, the executive to Joint staff to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Most of what General McChrystal has done over a 33-year career remains classified, including service between 2003 and 2008 as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, an elite unit so clandestine that the Pentagon for years refused to acknowledge its existence.

On July 22, 2006, Human Rights Watch issued a report titled "No blood, no foul" about American torture practices at three facilities in Iraq. One of them was Camp Nama, which was operated by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), under the direction of then Major General Stanley McChrystal.

McChrystal was officially based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, but he was a frequent visitor to Camp Nama and other Special Forces bases in Iraq and Afghanistan where forces under his command were based.

An interrogator at Camp Nama known as Jeff described locking prisoners in shipping containers for 24 hours at a time in extreme heat; exposing them to extreme cold with periodic soaking in cold water; bombardment with bright lights and loud music; sleep deprivation; and severe beatings.

When he and other interrogators went to the colonel in charge and expressed concern that this kind of treatment was not legal, and that they might be investigated by the military's Criminal Investigation Division or the International Committee of the Red Cross, the colonel told them he had "this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there's no way that the Red Cross could get in."

In the July 2, 2006 report, When Human Rights Watch asked whether the interrogator knew whether the colonel was receiving orders or pressures to use the abusive tactics, Jeff said that his understanding was that there was some form of pressure to use aggressive techniques coming from higher up the chain of command; however neither he nor other interrogators were briefed on the particular source.

"We really didn't know too much about it. We knew that we were only like a few steps away in the chain of command from the Pentagon, but it was a little unclear, especially to the interrogators who weren't really part of that task force."

The interrogator said that he did see Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of US Joint Special Operations forces in Iraq, visiting the Nama facility on several occasions. "I saw him a couple of times. I know what he looks like."

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is the international body charged under international law with monitoring compliance with the Geneva Conventions, and it, therefore, has the right to inspect all facilities where people are detained in a country that is at war or under military occupation.

To hide prisoners or facilities from the ICRC or to deny access to them is a serious war crime. But many US prisons in Iraq have held "ghost" prisoners whose imprisonment has not been reported to the ICRC, and these "ghosts" have usually been precisely the ones subjected to the worst torture. Camp Nama, run by McChrystal's JSOC, was an entire "ghost" facility.

The decision by Obama's administration to appoint General McChrystal as the new commander in charge of the war in Afghanistan and retaining the military commission for the US war-on-terror detainees held in the Guantanamo Bay prison are the latest examples of the new US administration walking in Bush's foot steps with regards to torture and denial of habeas corpus.

The US has interfered in Afghanistan since 1960s and increased its role in 1980s after the former Soviet Union invaded the country in 1979, a Pakistani journalist says.

"The US will pursue its plans for Afghanistan with the help of Taliban and al-Qaeda until 2012 in order to achieve its objectives against interests of China and Iran. The US will unveil its [ultimate] plans only when it achieves its objectives," Jang Daily's Javid Rashid told IRIB.

He claimed that the US and Pakistan would continue their cooperation in Afghanistan in the future. "I see Afghanistan's future as very dim."

According to Rashid, the US and the Pakistani army jointly organized pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan because they want Pakistan under the current government to retain its chaotic situation.

"As they have introduced al-Qaeda as an emblem of terror in the Muslim world, they have also established Taliban in an effort to weaken Pakistan," Rashid noted.

Qari Zainuddin (centre), surrounded by his armed guard in northwestern Pakistan

A tribal leader who earlier defected from Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud and revealed the militants group's ties with the US and Israel has been shot dead.

The assassination of Qari Zainuddin comes days after he revealed that their comrade was pursuing a US-Israeli agenda across the violence-wracked country.

Zainuddin, a 26-year-old rising tribesman who had called Mehsud "an American agent" was killed by a gunman in northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan on Tuesday.

Zainuddin, who broke away from Mehsud, was also increasingly critical of Mehsud's use of suicide bombings targeting civilians.

In an interview with local media the defector said that Mehsud had established strong links with Israeli intelligence services, which were destabilizing the nuclear armed country. "These people (Mehsud and his men) are working against Islam."

Mehsud, a warlord in his late 30s, has claimed responsibility for dozens of devastating string attacks on both civilians and security forces throughout the feared region.

Insurgents have stepped up their attacks on civilian and religious centers in major cities across Pakistan, which has fueled anti-Taliban sentiments among the Pakistani people.

The US invaded Afghanistan more than seven years ago to allegedly eradicate insurgency and arrest Taliban and al Qaeda leaders.

The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 has resulted in the spread of violence into neighboring Pakistan. Taliban militants have turned the restive tribal belt between the two neighbors into a scene of daily violence.