The intelligence head of Iran’s influential Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has opposed imposition of quarantine measures on the holy city of Qom where the deadly novel coronavirus started spreading across the country, informed sources told Iran International. 

According to these sources, Hossein Taeb voiced his opposition to a proposal by Iran’s health minister to quarantine Qom during a meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. 

The Iranian government said on Monday that the death toll from coronavirus had jumped to 12 -- by far the highest outside China.

Taeb reportedly said Qom was the “honor of Islam” and implementing quarantine measure there would play into the hands of US media. 

Iranian media had earlier reported that Saeed Namaki, Iran’s minister of health, had attended an SNSC meeting last Saturday.

Iranian health ministry officials had earlier underlined the necessity of quarantine in Qom, but the deputy minister of health Iraj Harirchi rejected the idea, saying it belonged to years preceding World War I.

Ever since the COVID-19 outbreak in China in December and subsequently some other countries, quarantine has been implemented in some cities.