From AP,
Iran hanged 11 men authorities said were members of an armed Sunni militant group convicted of bombings, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The men were said to be members of Jundallah, the group that claimed responsibility for an attack [to avenge the hanging of its leader, Abdulmalik Rigi, earlier this year] last week on Shiite worshippers that killed 39 people in the southeastern port city of Chahbahar.
Jundallah has been waging an insurgency for years in remote Sistan-Baluchistan province, a lawless area in southeastern Iran bordering Pakistan where smuggling and banditry are rife. The groups says it is fighting for the rights of the Baluchi minority, which it says suffers discrimination at the hands of Iran's Shiite's leadership.
[Those hanged were convicted of alleged] involvement in attacks over the past years that killed 15 policemen and 12 members of the Revolutionary Guards — Iran's most powerful military force. The were also accused of supplying arms and refuge to terrorists, armed kidnapping and arms smuggling.
From AFP 1
Shadowy Sunni militant group Jundallah (Army of God) has claimed several deadly attacks in Sistan-Baluchestan, of which Zahedan is the capital and which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan, including a December 15 suicide bombing in the city of Chabahar that killed 39 people and wounded dozens.
The bomber struck in a central square as worshippers took part in the procession marking the eve of the last day of Ashura, the most revered Shiite mourning ritual.
Iranian officials charge that the group is receiving support from the intelligence services of the United States, Britain and Pakistan.
[After the Chabahar attack] Iranian president "asked Zardari to order his country's security forces to quickly arrest known terrorists and hand them over to the Islamic Republic of Iran," Ahmadinejad's office said in a statement posted on its website.
[Sistan-Baluchestan provincial justice department head Ebrahim Hamidi said] "These corrupt and Mohareb (waging war against God) elements ... went through all the legal and religious procedures of receiving a fair and public trial,"
[Those hanged were accused of] "corruption on earth, fighting against God and the Prophet and confronting the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Under Iranian penal code these crimes are punishable by death.
From AFP 2
Millions of Iranians, beating themselves with fists and chains, marked the climax of Ashura on Thursday a day after a suicide bomber killed 34 people in a procession for Shiite Islam's most revered mourning ritual.
Men, women and children dressed in black gathered in cities across the country as the 10 days of rituals mourning the death of Imam Hussein, the faith's third imam, reached a peak.
Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, was killed by armies of the caliph Yazid in 680 AD. Tradition holds that he was decapitated and his body mutilated in the battle at Karbala, now in Iraq.
Shiites make up around 15 percent of Muslims worldwide. They represent the majority populations in Iran, Iraq and Bahrain, and form significant communities in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Source: AFP (1,2), AP
Comments: No non-Muslims involved here, although, as usual, the US and others are blamed, to create further hate, paranoia and conspiracy theories among Muslims.
Claims of intra-Muslim discrimination (Probably true).
Discrimination excuse for terror attacks.
Some previous similar or related stories:
Ethnic Baluch Sunni Iranian rebel group Jundullah declared a terror group by the US [Ethnic (Persian-Baluch) and sectarian (Sunni-Shiite) division in Iran]
Iranian Nazi site IranNazi.Ir unblocked by Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic guidance after a brief ban [Claims of Persian supremacism in Iran]
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