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Iran says it executed nine militants of the Islamic State group detained after a 2018 attack
ByGABE LEVIN Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Iran says it executed nine militants of the Islamic State group detained after a 2018 attack. The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency announced the executions Tuesday.
It described the militants as being detained after they were involved in a clash with Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard that killed three Iranian troops.
Iran carries out executions by hanging.
The extremist group, which once held vast territory across Iraq and Syria in a self-described caliphate it declared in 2014, ultimately was beaten back by U.S.-led forces.
It has been in disarray in the years since, though it has mounted major assaults. In neighboring Afghanistan, for instance, the Islamic State group is believed to have grown in strength since the fall of the Western-backed government there to the Taliban in 2021.
The group previously claimed a June 2017 attack in Tehran on parliament and a mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 50. It has claimed other attacks as well in Iran, including two suicide bombings in 2024 targeting a commemoration for an Iranian general slain in a 2020 U.S. drone strike. That assault killed at least 94 people.
