Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials announced they arrested a former member of the the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in St. Paul this weekend.
Mehran Makari Saheli was arrested on June 22 by federal officials. According to ICE, the 57-year-old Saheli was illegally present in the United States after an immigration judge ordered him to leave the country three years ago.
ICE says Saheli is an Iranian national, a convicted felon, a former member of Iran’s IRGC, and has “admitted connections” to the terrorist organization Hezbollah. A major component of the Iranian military, the IRGC contains Iran’s ground, naval, aerospace, and other forces.
“Saheli is now in ICE custody pending removal,” said the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The arrest of Saheli was one of several operations DHS conducted over the weekend which led to the apprehension of 11 Iranian nationals who were allegedly in the United States illegally. Iranian nationals were arrested in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, and Texas.
According to DHS, those arrested “include an individual with admitted ties to Hezbollah, a known or suspected terrorist, and an alleged former sniper for the Iranian army.”
Many of the apprehensions came the day after the United States launched a covert bombing mission that destroyed three Iranian nuclear facilities. That bombing was a part of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East between Iran and Israel. At publication time, Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire.
On Sunday, DHS issued a National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin announcing a “heightened threat environment” due to the conflict.
In that advisory, the federal government warned that “low-level cyber attacks against US networks by pro-Iranian hacktivists are likely, and cyber actors affiliated with the Iranian government may conduct attacks against US networks.”
DHS also warned that the “likelihood of violent extremists in the Homeland independently mobilizing to violence in response to the conflict would likely increase if Iranian leadership issued a religious ruling calling for retaliatory violence against targets in the Homeland.”
That advisory is in place through Sept. 22, 2025.
The post Former member of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps arrested in St. Paul, ICE says appeared first on Alpha News MN.
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Author: Luke Sprinkel
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