Iran to hang 14 Sunni rebels in city park

Iran will hang 14 members of a Sunni rebel group in public on Tuesday, including a brother of its leader Abdolmalek Rigi, amid arrests of members of the main opposition group over the post election unrest, Iranian news agencies reported Monday.

Predominantly Shiite Muslim Iran says Jundollah (God's Soldiers) is part of the Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda network and backed by the United States, Tehran's arch foe.

The semi-offical Fars News Agency quoted a local judiciary statement as inviting families of the group's victims and other people to come and watch the executions at 6:30 a.m. (0200 GMT) in a park in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

Al Arabiya reported on May 29 that Jundollah had claimed a mosque bombing the previous day in Zahedan which killed 25 people.

Fars did not mention the bombing but said those sentenced to hang were convicted of mohareb, or waging war against God, and of killing innocent people.

It named one of the men sentenced to death as Abdolhamid Rigi, brother of Jundollah leader Abdolmalek Rigi. Fars reported on June 6 that two members of Jundollah, including a man it also named as Abdolhamid Rigi, were hanged in Zahedan.

A week earlier, three people convicted of involvement in the mosque bombing were hung in public. Media reported that clashes broke out between supporters and opponents of a Sunni cleric in the city and six people died in an arson attack.

Jundollah says it fights for the rights of minority Sunnis in officially Shiite Muslim Iran. Zahedan is the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province, where most people are minority Sunni Muslims and ethnic Baluchis.

Seven arrested

On Monday Iran arrested seven members of the main opposition group over post-election unrest.

"These people profited from the troubles after the June 12 presidential election to provoke people and wage their counter-revolutionary activities," said Ali Eftekari, deputy prosecutor in the northern province of Qazvin where they were arrested.

"These young people had links with the hypocrites based in Iraq," he said, using the Iranian official term for the People's Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI).

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Tehran and other cities last month to protest at the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which his rivals charge was rigged.

Eftekari said the arrested militants played a major role in the unrest in Tehran and incited people to join demonstratins in Qazin.

Founded in 1965 with the aim of overthrowing the U.S.-backed shah and then the Islamic regime, the PMOI has in the past operated an armed group inside Iran.

It was the armed wing of the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran but renounced violence in June 2001.

These people profited from the troubles after the June 12 presidential election to provoke people and wage their counter-revolutionary activities

Ali Eftekari, deputy prosecutor