Iran executes eight men for terrorist attack in Tehran

Iran executed eight men convicted for the ISIS attack on parliament and the shrine of the Islamic Republic’s founding ayatollah, the bloodiest terrorist attack to strike Tehran in decades, authorities said yesterday.

The June 7, 2017 attack has so far been the only assault by the Sunni extremists inside Shiite majority Iran, which is involved in the wars in Iraq and Syria where the militants once held vast territory.

ISIS has since been beaten back by Iranian-aided Shiite militias in Iraq, as well as by a United States-led coalition.

The judiciary’s official Mizan news agency announced the executions yesterday but did not say when or where they took place. The head of Tehran’s Justice Department, Gholam Hossein Esmaili, told state television they took place days earlier but it was decided not to immediately announce them, likely as a security measure.

Mizan said the executions came after the eight men had been convicted in a trial that included eyewitness testimony and video footage showing their involvement, by providing the attackers support in days leading up to the assault.

“These eight worked directly ... in martyring and wounding a number of innocent compatriots,” Mizan said.

They were named as Soleiman Mozafari, Esmail Sufi, Rahman Behrouz, Majed Mortezai, Sirous Azizi, Ayoub Esmaili, Khosro Ramezani and Osman Behrouz. More than a dozen others remain on trial.

Iran is one of the world’s top enforcers of the death penalty but mass executions are rare.

The 2017 ISIS attack killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 50. Gunmen carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles and explosives stormed the parliament complex, starting an hours-long siege. Gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mausoleum on Tehran’s outskirts. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution.