The official Irna news agency also reported that Abdulhamid Rigi, the brother of Abdulmalik Rigi, leader of the group known as Jundallah or Soldiers of God, had been scheduled to be hanged along with the 13 men on Tuesday but his execution was postponed. It gave no reason for the postponement. But another report said he had been executed with the others. The executions, according to the state radio, took place in the city of Zahedan, 930 miles southeast of Iran's capital Tehran and scene of some of the deadliest attacks blamed on Jundallah, which has carried out bombings, kidnappings and killings in the area in recent years. Irna also said that all 13 were supposed to be hanged in public but authorities changed their mind at the last minute and decided to execute them inside Zahedan's main prison. The state radio had earlier reported that the executions took place in public. The area in the southeast of the Shia Muslim majority country where Jundallah is active also is a key smuggling point for drugs - mainly opium - and is the scene of frequent clashes between police and traffickers. Iranian authorities have said Jundallah has close ties to "foreign forces" in neighbouring Afghanistan, a possible reference to al-Qaeda. Iran has faced several ethnic and religious insurgencies that have carried out sporadic, sometimes deadly attacks in recent years, although none have amounted to a serious threat to the government. In May, a suicide bombing targeting a Shia mosque in Zahedan killed 25 worshippers. In 2007, a car bomb killed 11 members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards near Zahedan, capital of the large Sistan-Baluchistan province and home to about a million of Iran's five million Sunni Muslims.Iran hangs 13 members of rebel Sunni Muslim group
Thirteen members of a Sunni Muslim rebel group have been hanged in Iran after being convicted of bombings and murder in the southeast of the country.
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
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