Iranian Sunni Muslim rebel leader Abdolmalek Rigi was executed today after being convicted of “enmity toward God” and ties to the U.S. and Israel, state television reported.

“Rigi was hanged this morning in prison following the decision of the Tehran revolutionary tribunal,” the report said, four months after his arrest. Iran, a mostly Shiite Muslim nation, uses the term “enemy of God” for those who commit major crimes against the Islamic Republic. He was also convicted of 79 other offenses, including armed attacks and murder, the report said.

Iranian authorities say Rigi’s group, Jundallah, Arabic for “soldiers of God,” has been responsible for several deadly attacks in the nation’s southeast. In February, 28, Rigi was shown in custody on state television confessing that the group received financial and logistical support from the U.S., which Iran’s leaders consider a foe.

Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar said Rigi, an Iranian citizen, was captured in February as he attempted to fly from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan. His execution today came about a month after his detained brother, Abdolhamid, was hanged for his involvement with Jundallah.

Rigi was 28 and founded Jundallah about a decade ago, the group said today on its website. He was born in the southeastern city of Zahedan and “from his childhood felt strongly about being martyred on the path to justice,” the statement said.

Pakistani Border

Iran has said the U.S. and the U.K. support Jundallah to help promote an insurgency by ethnic minorities to destabilize the Islamic regime. Rigi’s crimes also included “ties to members of foreign intelligence services, including members from U.S. and the Zionist regime’s intelligence services under the cover of NATO,” the television report said, citing the court statement. The U.S. and Britain deny involvement with the group.

Jundallah, which is based along Pakistan’s border with southeastern Iran, says it aims to fight for “the freedom of the Baluchi people and the Sunnis” and to secure the minority groups’ rights, according to its website. Iran is about 90 percent Shiite.

Baluchis, who are Sunni Muslim, live in the Sunni-dominated Sistan-Baluchistan province, which also borders Afghanistan. The province is one of Iran’s poorest and has experienced political unrest and several attacks on military officials.

New Leader

Jundallah has designated a new leader, Haj Mohammad Zaher Baluch, who is already known by his followers as “the second Abdolmalek,” the group said today in its statement.

The Islamic “establishment has only caught one Abdolmalek and cannot stop the hundreds and thousands of others,” the statement said. “The fighters throughout Baluchistan will continue their struggle.”

Jundallah has said it bombed a mosque in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan, in May last year. The attack killed at least 21 people and injured about 200. The group also claimed responsibility for the February 2007 bombing of a bus in Zahedan that killed 11 civilian employees of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is responsible for security in the province.

More recently, in October, Jundallah was involved in a suicide bombing that killed at least 29 people in Sistan- Baluchistan, including several of the Guards’ senior officers, the Iranian government says.

Besides conflicts between rival political movements, Sistan-Baluchistan’s instability is also deepened by organized crime, as Zahedan is a main entry point for opium and heroin from Afghanistan.