DUBAI – Iran executed two members of the outlawed Mujahideen-e-Khalq opposition group for targeting civilian infrastructure with homemade projectiles, the judiciary news outlet Mizan reported on Sunday.

MEK, also known as the People’s Mujahedeen Organization, is one of the main Iranian opposition factions outside the Islamic Republic.

Mehdi Hassani and Behrouz Ehsani-Eslamloo, “operational elements” of the MEK, were sentenced to death in a verdict upheld by the Supreme Court, Mizan said.

“The terrorists, in coordination with MEK leaders, had set up a team house in Tehran, where they built launchers and handheld mortars in line with the group’s goals, fired projectiles heedlessly at citizens, homes, service and administrative facilities, educational and charity centers, and also carried out propaganda and information-gathering activities in support of the MEK,” the report said.

The defendants were indicted for “moharebeh,” an Islamic term meaning waging war against God, destroying public property and “membership in a terrorist organization with the aim of disrupting national security.”

Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Sunday that Ehsani-Eslamloo had been arrested in 2022 following an explosion at the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology claimed by the MEK.

The MEK was a powerful leftist-Islamist group that staged bombing campaigns against the shah’s government and US targets in the 1970s but ultimately fell out with the other factions of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Since then, the MEK has opposed the Islamic Republic, and its leadership in exile has been Paris-based. The group was listed as a terrorist organization by the US and the European Union until 2012.

Iran enforces capital punishment for a range of serious crimes and ranks as the world’s second-most prolific executioner after China, according to human rights groups including Amnesty International.

Executions in Iran are typically carried out by hanging at dawn.

The executions took place as Iran has faced continuing instability following its 12-day war with Israel last month, in which Israeli and US strikes targeted Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, weapons program and top nuclear scientists. In recent days, Iran has restarted talks over its nuclear program with France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Since the war, the country has experienced a series of mysterious explosions hitting apartment buildings, oil facilities and factories. Publicly, officials have blamed the incidents on a range of causes, including gas leaks, garbage fires, and dilapidated infrastructure. But The New York Times reported that privately, Iranian officials believe Israel is to blame.

And on Saturday, Iranian state media reported that gunmen killed five civilians during a “terrorist attack” on a judiciary building in the country’s southeast before being killed themselves.

According to Iranian media, Jaish al-Adl (Arabic for “Army of Justice”), a Baloch jihadist group based in Pakistan but also active in Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack.