Iran has executed a group of 20 “terrorist” Sunni prisoners for committing several murders and undermining national security, state media reported on Thursday.
“These people had committed murder... killed women and children, caused destructions and acted against the security and killed Sunni religious leaders in some Kurdish regions,” IRIB television quoted prosecutor general Mohammad Javad Montazeri.
He said all the executions, carried out by hanging, happened on Tuesday.
Montazeri said that the convicts, some of whom had come from abroad, followed "takfiri" ideologies, a term Shiite-majority Iran uses for describing Sunni jihadists.
Iran, which executed nearly 1,000 people last year – more than any other country apart from China – has not provided much explanation about Tuesday’s executions.
The intelligence ministry issued a statement on Wednesday about what it described as a Takfiri-Salafist group named Monotheism and Jihad whose members it said had been arrested and some sentenced to death.
The statement detailed on 24 armed attacks between 2009 and 2011, including bombings and robberies, apparently by a single group.
The "Tawhid (monotheism) and Jihad" extremist outfit were responsible for the deaths of 21 people in three western provinces in that time span, the ministry said.
