IRAN: Al-Qaeda-linked guerrillas killed 11 men at a roadside in southern Iran and strung a wounded 12-year-old boy from an electricity pylon before fleeing to mountain hideouts, police said yesterday.
Such violence is rare in areas far from Iran's lawless borders, but common along the Afghan and Pakistani frontier. The murders raise concerns about the safety of a road often used by tourists visiting historical sites in southern Iran.
Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi said some of the militants, later identified as being from the jundollah (God's soldiers) group, had been killed by security forces.
Gunmen disguised as policemen pulled over four cars on the desert road between the cities of Kerman and Bam on Saturday night, according to Iranian TV reports. Eleven of the victims were tipped into a ditch. The gunmen also sprayed a passing car with bullets, killing a 12th man.
Jundollah are Sunni Muslim militants who beheaded an Iranian security agent last June and killed 22 people near the southeastern city of Zahedan in March.
Iranian officials say Jundollah commander Abdolmalek Rigi was a cell leader of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network in Iran.
Jundollah hail from the eastern border province of Sistan-Baluchistan, which is plagued by violence associated with the traffic of opium from Afghanistan to Europe.
Sunni regions in Iran say they suffer discrimination in the predominantly Shia Muslim Islamic republic.