ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran on Monday carried out the death sentence of three men convicted of carrying out suicide bombing attacks on security forces in the southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province, the judiciary said.
Three men were found guilty of carrying out bombing attacks in 2019 targeting a police station and a patrol vehicle in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchestan province.
“The executions of the perpetrators of three people who committed bombings in Zahedan city were carried out today,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online quoted the province’s chief justice Ali Mostafavinia as saying.
They were “receiving military training and transferring and hiding bomb-making cargoes,” Mizan added.
The perpetrators were convicted of being part of the Jaish al-Adl (Justice Army), a Balochi Sunni jihadist group operating in the province. The militants have waged an insurgency against the Islamic republic and carried out attacks against its forces, especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Baluchis are a mainly Sunni ethnic minority in Iran, living predominantly in the Baluchestan region near the border with Pakistan. The region was heavily targeted during the violent crackdown by the IRGC on the September 2022 nationwide protests. Hundreds of Baluchis were killed by the IRGC during demonstrations in Zahedan and Khash.
Jaish al-Adl has carried out a number of suicide attacks on Iranian security forces, killing dozens in the border area. The administration of former US president Donald Trump added the group to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations in July 2019, five months after the group carried out a deadly suicide attack on the IRGC.
The attack killed 27 guards near Zahedan.
In May, five Iranian border guards were killed in clashes with an armed group in the Sistan and Baluchestan province.
A month later, another Iranian border guard was killed during similar clashes near the city of Saravan in the province.
Jaish al-Adl in July claimed responsibility for killing two police officers after militants stormed a police station with suicide belts.
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