Iran’s judiciary announced on Tuesday that nine prisoners accused of belonging to the Islamic State (IS) group had been executed.
The statement, published by the judiciary-affiliated Mizan News Agency, provided no details on the identities of those executed or the location or circumstances of the executions.
It stated only that the individuals had been arrested in February 2018 during clashes with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the Bamo border region of Salas-e Babajani in Kermanshah Province.
“The nine prisoners, who were mostly Kurdish Sunni, were transferred to solitary confinement for execution on 12 May 2025, after being beaten by special guards during a raid on the religious prisoners’ ward of Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj [in Alborz Province]”, a source told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
While the precise timing of the executions remains unclear, the source said the group is believed to have been executed together in the same prison.
The same source said dozens of Sunni inmates accused of “membership of Salafi groups” are currently held in a special section of Ghezel Hesar Prison. “Most are Sunni Kurds,” the source said, “though some are foreign nationals”.
On 29 January 2018, Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the IRGC Ground Forces, reported a clash between forces at the Najaf-e Ashraf base and a Salafi group in the mountainous Bamo border region.
In statements to Iranian state media, he said that three IRGC members and five militants had been killed and 16 people had been arrested. At the time, Pakpour claimed that most of the detainees were foreign nationals.
