IRAN: Iran’s judiciary said on Saturday it had executed six members of a “terrorist” group convicted of waging armed attacks in the southwestern province of Khuzestan.
“The death sentence for six separatist terrorist elements, who in recent years had carried out a series of armed operations and bombings targeting security in Khuzestan province, was carried out at dawn today,” the judiciary said on its Mizan website.
The identities of those executed and details of their arrests and sentencing were not immediately clear.
But Mizan reported that they were involved in the killings of four security personnel, including two police officers and two members of the Basij paramilitary force, in 2018 and 2019.
The report also said they had “confessed to planning and executing acts of sabotage such as making and planting bombs, blowing up the Khorramshahr gas station”.
Iran usually links what it calls separatist and terrorist groups to its arch-nemesis, Israel, which it calls the “Zionist regime”.
In a separate execution on Saturday, authorities hanged Saman Mohammadi after convicting him for “Moharebeh” — waging war against God — for his alleged membership in terrorist and Takfiri groups, Tehran’s term for Islamist militants.
Mohammadi, arrested in 2013, was reportedly involved in the 2009 killing of the Friday prayers imam in the western city of Sanandaj, as well as in armed robberies and kidnappings, including the killing of a conscript.
The executions came less than a week afer Iran said it hanged a man it described as one of Israel’s top spies.
The Islamic republic, which carries out executions by hanging, is the world’s second most prolific executioner after China, according to human rights groups including Amnesty International.
