Iran has executed six people it accused of carrying out deadly attacks in the country’s south with the support of Israel, according to a report from the judiciary’s Mizan news agency.
The executions on Saturday are among the largest Iran has publicly acknowledged in recent years for acts it has tied to Israel and come amid growing concerns from human rights groups about a widening crackdown under national security laws.
The judiciary’s Mizan website described the individuals as “separatist terrorists” and alleged they were responsible for shootings in 2018 and 2019 that killed four members of the police and the Basij paramilitary militia.
“The death sentence for six separatist terrorist elements, who in recent years had carried out a series of armed operations and bombings targeting security in Khuzestan province, was carried out at dawn today,” the judiciary said in its statement.
The report also claimed the individuals had confessed to targeting mosques, banks, and a military facility.
The identities of all those executed and the details of their arrests and sentencing were not immediately made clear.
The executions are part of a significant and alarming surge in the use of the death penalty in Iran this year. According to the human rights group Amnesty International, more than 1,000 people have been executed in Iran in 2025 on various offenses, including national security and drug-related charges.
This represents a dramatic increase, and the group notes that the true number could be even higher as Tehran does not report every execution. Iran is widely considered the world’s second most prolific executioner after China.
This recent crackdown follows a full-blown conflict with Israel in June and a series of domestic protests over the state of the economy and women’s rights.
In response, Iran’s parliament has passed a new bill to toughen the penalties for espionage and cooperation with states it deems to be hostile, though the legislation is still awaiting final approval.
The six executions were not the only ones carried out on Saturday. In a separate case, authorities hanged the Kurdish fighter Saman Mohammadi after convicting him for “Moharebeh”—a charge that translates to “waging war against God.” Mohammadi had been arrested in 2013.
The executions also came less than a week after Iran announced it had hanged Bahman Choobiasl, a man it described as “one of the most important spies for Israel in Iran,” over his alleged meetings with officials from the Israeli spy agency, Mossad.
Entangled in a decades-long shadow war with Israel, Iran has frequently put to death individuals it accuses of having links to the intelligence agency.
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