Free Republic

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's official news agency is reporting that at least five senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard have been killed in a homicide bombing in southeastern Iran

ran Human Rights, July 13: According to the state run Iranian news agency Fars, 14 people are scheduled to be hanged in public in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan tomorrow July 14. According to the report all the 14 people are connected to "Jondollah", a militant Baluchi group belonging to Abdolmalek Rigi, and are convicted of "moharebe" (fighting against God; a term used for people fighting against the Iranian authorities). Abdolhamid Rigi, brother of Abdolmalek Rigi leader of the group, is among the 14 said the report. None of the other 13 have been identified by name in the...

There has been a considerable escalation in violence in Iran's impoverished Balochistan province. On 1 May, Iran's Interior Minister Mostafa Purmohammadi said that Tehran has approached Interpol for help in tracking down Abdolmalek Rigi. The Iranian authorities believe that Rigi, the ethnic Baloch and Sunni leader of Jondollah (Soldiers of Allah), is probably traversing between Iran's Balochistan and Pakistan and southern Afghanistan. Rigi and his unknown number of militiamen have vowed to fight the Shia-centric government in Tehran unless socio-economic conditions improve in the province, where the majority of the population is Sunni and ethnic Baloch. Meanwhile, mainstream Balochis are...