Raisi did not say who the enemies were, although Tehran regularly accuses the US and Israel of cracking down on it.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has blamed enemies of Tehran for poisoning hundreds of schoolgirls across the country.
The previously unsolved poisoning of more than 30 schools in at least four cities began in November in Qom, Iran’s Shia holy city, prompting some parents to withdraw their children from school.
Iran’s health minister said on Tuesday that hundreds of girls in different schools have been affected and some politicians may have indicated they could be targeted by religious groups opposed to girls’ education.
Speaking to a crowd in southern Iran on Friday in a speech broadcast live on state television, Raisi blamed the poisoning on Iran’s enemies.
“This is a security project to cause chaos in the country, with the enemy trying to instill fear and insecurity in parents and students,” he said.
He did not say who those enemies were, although Iranian leaders regularly accuse the United States and Israel, among others, of cracking down on them.
Separately, a senior Iranian official said a fuel truck found next to a school in a Tehran suburb, which had also been sighted in two other cities, was likely involved in the poisoning.
Authorities seized the tanker and arrested its driver, said Reza Karimi Saleh, the deputy governor of the Pardis suburb.
Saleh is the first government official to report an arrest in connection with the poisoning wave.
He said the same tanker was also in Qom and Borujerd in Lorestan province in western Iran, where students also suffered from poisoning. He didn’t elaborate.
“Guards at a parking lot where the fuel tanker was parked also suffered poisoning,” Saleh said, referring to the Pardis site.
Prompts investigation
In Geneva, the United Nations Human Rights Office called for a transparent investigation into the attacks on Friday.
“We are very concerned by these allegations that girls are being deliberately assaulted in what appear to be mysterious circumstances,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said at a briefing.
She said the results of a government inquiry should be made public and the perpetrators brought to justice.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock joined international calls and said the reports were shocking and needed a full investigation.
“Girls need to be able to go to school without fear,” Baerbock said on Twitter. “It is nothing less than their human right. All cases must be fully investigated.”
The spokesman for the US State Department on Wednesday asked Iran to investigate the poisoning cases in schools.
Some Iranian politicians have suggested that the schoolgirls could be targeted by religious groups opposed to girls’ education.
Social media posts are crammed with photos and videos of girls in the hospital. Some said they were nauseous and had palpitations. Others complained of headaches or palpitations. The posts could not be verified.
Schoolgirls have also joined the anti-government protests sparked by the death of an Iranian-Kurdish woman in custody last September. They have removed their obligatory hijabs in classrooms, torn up pictures of Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei and called for his death.
In an online video last year, schoolgirls can be seen waving their headscarves in the air and shouting at a member of Iran’s paramilitary Basij force.