"Intelligence agents were able to arrest 13 members of an anti-revolution terrorist group last week in the provinces of Qazvin, Hamedan, Kordestan and Mazandaran," it quoted an intelligence ministry statement as saying.

The agency said the group -- "linked to foreign intelligence services" -- was directly responsible for last year's killing of two clerics in the western province of Kordestan.

Sunni Borhan Ali, the Friday prayer leader from Kordestan capital Sanandaj and Mohammed Sheikh Olislam, the provincial representative in the Assembly of Experts which oversees Iran's supreme leader, were killed in September 2009.

The arrest operation also led to the confiscation of more than 500 kilogrammes of bomb-making material, 10 bombs and other weapons, the statement said.

Kordestan province is mainly inhabited by Sunni Kurds in predominantly Shiite Iran.