Monday, July 13, 2009 TEHRAN: Fourteen Sunni rebels from the shadowy group Jundallah are to be hanged in public early on Tuesday in the restive city of Zahedan in southeast Iran, the official news agency said on Monday.The condemned rebels include Abdolhamid Rigi, a brother of Jundallah (Soldiers of God) leader Abdolmalik Rigi.The local judiciary of Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan, has invited residents of the city to attend the executions due to be carried out at 6:30 am (0200 GMT), it added.Iran accuses Jundallah of launching regular attacks in Sistan-Baluchestan province, which is home to a sizeable Baluch minority of Sunni Muslims. The group strongly opposes the government of predominantly Shiite Iran.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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