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The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency announced the
executions Tuesday, saying that the death sentences had been
upheld by the country’s top court.
It described the militants as being detained after they were in
a clash in the country's western region with Iran’s paramilitary
Revolutionary Guard, in which three troops and several Islamic
State group fighters were killed. Authorities said they had
seized a cache of combat weapons, including a machine gun and 50
grenades, after surrounding the militants' hideout in the
country’s west.
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 since been in disarray, though it has mounted major
assaults. In Iran's neighbor Afghanistan, for instance, IS 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 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.
The clash with Revolutionary Guardsmen in 2018 marked a point of
heightened tensions between Iran and the militant group. Iran
launched ballistic missiles at parts of eastern Syria, vowing
revenge after militants disguised themselves as soldiers and
opened fire at a military parade in the Islamic Republic’s
southwest. That attack killed at least 25 people and was claimed
by both the Islamic State group and local separatists.
But Tehran's hand in Syria was weakened with the fall last year
of President Bashar Assad, a key ally. Analysts say IS could
take advantage of the security vacuum to stage a comeback while
Syria’s new leaders are still consolidating their control over
the country and forming a national army.
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