AFP — Iran has arrested four people wearing explosives vests who are suspected of plotting attacks on behalf of Sunni militant group Jundallah, the state television website reported on Tuesday.
"The four members of this group who were arrested attempted to enter Sistan Baluchestan carrying explosive vests," the southeastern province's justice chief Ebrahim Hamidi told the website.
They now face "charges of espionage as well as cooperation with anti-revolutionary elements," Hamidi said.
In recent years, Jundallah (Army of God) has claimed a series of deadly attacks in Sistan-Baluchestan and adjacent provinces near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In December, it claimed an attack by multiple suicide bombers that killed 39 people in the city of Chabahar.
The group says it is fighting for the rights of the province's significant Sunni ethnic Baluchi community, who complain of discrimination in Shiite-dominated Iran.
Iranian officials charge that the group has received support from Western governments, as well as Israel and Pakistan.
A year ago, Iran hanged the group's leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, after capturing him on an intercepted flight.
Washington has now blacklisted Jundallah as a foreign terrorist organisation, in a move cautiously welcomed by Tehran.
