Iran security forces kill five militants

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian security forces have killed five suspected hardline Sunni militants believed to have been involved in roadside murders in the restive southeast of the country, police said.

Quoted by state television, the police information centre said the five were killed in a district of Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province. An Iranian guard was killed and another injured during the operation.

On May 13, a group of 12 travellers were killed on a main road between the cities of Bam and Kerman. Police said a shadowy group called Jundallah (Army of God) claimed responsibility for the execution-style murders.

Jundallah, headed by a figure called Abdolmalek Rigi, has claimed responsibility or been blamed for a string of armed incidents in
Iran's Sistan-Baluschestan province, which borders
Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Sunnis form the majority in Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan, although Shiite Islam is Iran's official religion. Southeastern Iran is also a major thoroughfare for narcotics smuggled from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Europe and the Middle East.

Iranian officials have also accused Britain and the United States of supporting ethnic minority rebels operating within the Islamic republic's sensitive border areas, amid a worsening stand-off over Iran's nuclear ambitions.