Iran's Prosecutor-General Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeii said that the terrorist cells operative in Southeastern Iran use drug money to fund their operations in the country, Tabnak reported.
Speaking to reporters in a press conference here in Tehran on Monday, the Iranian prosecutor-general said terrorist groups smuggle drug into Iran from the neighboring countries in a bid to fund their terrorist operations.
Eastern Iran neighbors Pakistan and Afghanistan are the world number one opium producer. Despite Iran's continued campaign and border entanglements and blockings, terrorists escape to Pakistan after conducting their terrorist operations, mostly in the Southeastern Sistan and Balouchestan province.
The main terrorist band operating in Southeastern Iran is the Jundollah terrorist group. Tehran has arrested a majority of its members and executed its number one and number two leaders.
Yet, the group staged a terrorist bomb blast in the Southeastern port city of Chabahar on Wednesday, killing 39 civilians and wounding 93 others.
Less than a week after the Chabahar attack, Tehran announced on Monday that it has carried out court rulings for the capital punishment of 11 members of the Jundollah terrorist group in Zahedan, the capital city of Sistan and Balouchestan province.
The Iranian prosecutor-general said all those executed earlier today had been arrested three years ago.
"Two of them had smuggled drugs into Iran and we had seized around 1,000kg of opium from them.
"It came to be known that these individuals gathered the drug money to procure their needed tools and equipment for doing their terrorist actions."
Terrorist organizations in almost 30 countries now finance their activities, to a greater or lesser extent, through the highly profitable trade in prohibited drugs. In particular, drug trafficking has become increasingly important as a source of revenue for terrorist groups after the end of the Cold War.
The Public Relations Office of Sistan and Balouchestan's Judiciary announced in a statement earlier today that it had executed 11 members of the Jundollah terrorist group, adding that the 11 convicts had been involved in terrorist attacks and armed clashes with the Law Enforcement Police officers in the province and killed innocent people.
The terrorists who were charged with militancy against the Islamic Republic, corruption and other criminal acts were arrested by the Iranian security and intelligence forces and were executed after the relevant judiciary processing, the statement added.
The statement also underlined that all the convicts collaborated with the Jundollah terrorist group on different occasions and carried out effective activities to help the group attain its devilish goals.