DUBAI        - A senior Iranian official said on Thursday that Tehran had foiled a plot by Israeli and Arab agencies to assassinate Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force. State media quoted Hossein Taeb, the Revolutionary Guards security chief, as telling a conference that the plotters had planned to buy a property adjacent to the grave of Soleimani’s father and rig it with explosives to kill the commander. Soleimani leads the foreign arm of the Guards and has had a key role in fighting in Syria and Iraq. Taeb said an unspecified number of people had been arrested in the plot, which he said had been “years in planning”. Taeb did not name the Arab countries allegedly involved in the plot, but Iran has had tense relations with U.S.-allied regional rival Saudi Arabia.