DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A new report alleges Iran is destroying or redeveloping the sites of mass graves holding those executed in a 1988 purge that killed thousands.

The joint report was released Monday by the London-based group Justice for Iran and Amnesty International.

It focuses on seven mass graves demolished, covered in garbage or redeveloped to hide evidence of the killings. Justice for Iran alleges it has identified over 120 locations in Iran that were used as mass graves then.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.

International rights groups estimate as many as 5,000 people were executed by Iran near the end of its war with Iraq. Those killed include Communists, Kurdish separatists and members of an Iranian opposition group called the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. </s> Iran is deliberately destroying or concealing mass graves of victims from a 1988 spate of extrajudicial executions of political detainees, according to a new report by the nongovernmental watchdog Amnesty International and the London-based Justice For Iran.

The April 30 report alleges Tehran is erecting buildings or constructing roads over at least seven locations where some of the estimated 5,000 victims of the political purge are believed to have been buried.

Amnesty International experts based their assessment on satellite imagery and testimony of eyewitnesses at the sites in Iran's Gilan, East Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Khuzestan, Khorasan Razavi, and Tehran provinces.

"The actions include: bulldozing; hiding the mass graves beneath new, individual burial plots; constructing concrete slabs, buildings, or roads over the mass graves; and turning the mass grave sites into rubbish dumps," the report states. "In at least three cases, the authorities appear to be planning actions that would further damage the mass graves."

The executions came at the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, which left more than 1 million people dead. When Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a UN-brokered cease-fire in July 1988, members of an Iranian opposition group called the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, which was based in Iraq and armed by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, launched a surprise attack against Iran.

The attack was used as a pretext to round up political opponents who were sent to be executed by "death commissions." International rights monitors estimate a total of 5,000 people were killed, while the Mujahedeen-e Khalq says the real figure was 30,000.

Tehran has never openly acknowledged the executions, which are believed to have been ordered by Khomeini.

"It has not become a part of history yet," Justice For Iran Executive Director Shadi Sadr told the Associated Press. "As long as those responsible for the crimes are still in power…it's not something that belongs to the past."

With reporting by AP </s> Report: Iran destroys mass graves of those executed in 1988

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A new report alleges Iran is destroying or redeveloping the sites of mass graves holding those executed in a 1988 purge that killed thousands.

The joint report was released Monday by the London-based group Justice for Iran and Amnesty International.

It focuses on seven mass graves demolished, covered in garbage or redeveloped to hide evidence of the killings. Justice for Iran alleges it has identified over 120 locations in Iran that were used as mass graves then.

Iran's mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.

International rights groups estimate as many as 5,000 people were executed by Iran near the end of its war with Iraq. Those killed include Communists, Kurdish separatists and members of an Iranian opposition group called the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. </s> DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Iran is destroying or redeveloping the sites of mass graves holding those executed in a 1988 wartime purge that killed as many as 5,000 people, a report released Monday alleges.

The joint report by the London-based group Justice for Iran and Amnesty International calls new attention to the mass executions carried out nearly 30 years ago, which came at the end of Iran's bloody war with Iraq.

While largely not talked about publicly since then, the executions roiled Iran anew in 2016 with the release of a recording of a top official at the time condemning the killings as "the biggest crime in the history of the Islamic Republic."

Iran's mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment on the report.

"It has not become a part of history yet," Shadi Sadr, executive director of Justice for Iran, told The Associated Press. "As long as those responsible for the crimes are still in power ... it's not something that belongs to the past."

Justice for Iran alleges in the report that it has identified over 120 locations in the country it believes were used as mass graves then. The report focuses on seven sites for which the group says it has reliable testimony, photo and video evidence and satellite imagery.

It says Iranian authorities targeted the sites in areas including Iran's Gilan, East Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Khuzestan, Khorasan Razavi and Tehran provinces in different ways.

"The actions include: bulldozing; hiding the mass graves beneath new, individual burial plots; constructing concrete slabs, buildings or roads over the mass graves; and turning the mass grave sites into rubbish dumps," the report says. "In at least three cases, the authorities appear to be planning actions that would further damage the mass graves."

The graves hold those killed in executions that came at the end of Iran's long war with Iraq, which began when Saddam Hussein invaded in 1980. By 1988, 1 million people had been killed in a conflict that featured trench warfare, Iranian human-wave attacks and chemical weapons assaults launched by Iraq.

In July 1988, Iran's then-ailing supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, reluctantly accepted a U.N.-brokered cease-fire that he called "more deadly to me than poison." But within days, members of an Iranian opposition group called the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, then based in Iraq and heavily armed by Saddam, launched a surprise attack.

Iran repelled the assault, but the attack set the stage for sham trials of Communists, Kurdish separatists, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq members, political prisoners and others that would become known as "death commissions."

Some who appeared were asked to identify themselves. Those who responded "mujahedeen" were sent to their deaths, while others were questioned about their willingness to "clear minefields for the army of the Islamic Republic," according to a 1990 Amnesty report.

International rights groups estimate as many as 5,000 people were executed, while the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq puts the number at 30,000.

Iran has never fully acknowledged the executions, apparently carried out on Khomeini's orders, though some argue that other top officials were effectively in charge in the months before his 1989 death.

Sadr said evidence that has since come to light, including a posthumously released recording by Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, shows Iran had plans to execute prisoners years in advance and merely used the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq attack as an excuse.

"It's very important for the families to see some sort of truth and justice after three decades," she said.

Jon Gambrell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jongambrellap. His work can be found at http://apne.ws/2galNpz. </s> TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran executed eight men convicted over the 2017 Islamic State attack on parliament and the shrine of the Islamic Republic’s founding ayatollah, the bloodiest terror attack to strike Tehran in decades, authorities said Saturday.

The June 7, 2017 attack has so far been the only assault by the Sunni extremists inside of Shiite Iran, which has been deeply involved in the wars in Iraq and Syria where the militants once held vast territory. IS has since have been beaten back by Iranian-aided Shiite militias in Iraq, as well as by a U.S.-led coalition operating in both countries, though Iran has made other arrests involving the group in the time since.

The judiciary’s official Mizan news agency announced the executions Saturday morning, but did not say when or where they took place. The head of Tehran’s Justice Department, Gholamhossein Esmaili, told Iranian state television that authorities conducted the executions days earlier but chose not to immediately announce them, likely as a security measure.

Executions in Iran are carried out by hangings.

Mizan noted in its report that the executions came after the eight men had been tried and convicted in a trial that included both eyewitness testimony and video footage showing their involvement by providing the attackers support in the days leading up to the assault.

“These eight worked directly … in martyring and wounding a number of innocent compatriots,” Mizan said.

The news agencies on Saturday named those executed as Soleiman Mozafari, Esmail Sufi, Rahman Behrouz, Majed Mortezai, Sirous Azizi, Ayoub Esmaili, Khosro Ramezani and Osman Behrouz. Over a dozen others remain on trial over the attack.

While Iran is one of the world’s top enforcers of the death penalty, such mass executions are rare. In August 2016, human rights activists criticized Iran for carrying out the mass execution of 20 convicted Sunni militants from a group identified as Jihad and Tawhid after a six-year trial. In August 2007, Iran hanged seven men convicted of rape in Mashhad at the same time.

The June 2017 Islamic State attack killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 50. It saw gunmen carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles and explosives storm the parliament complex where a legislative session had been in progress, starting an hours-long siege.

Meanwhile, gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mausoleum on Tehran’s southern outskirts. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Iran’s first supreme leader until his death in 1989.

The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the years-long tumult surrounding the Islamic Revolution. The image of a child being passed out of a window at parliament under the watch of armed security forces remains seared in the minds of many.

Iran’s security forces responded with heavy force. Authorities arrested suspected IS militants, including their wives. In August 2017, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said it detained 27 militants linked to the Islamic State group who planned to attack holy Shiite cities within the country.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard responded to the attack by launching six ballistic missiles into eastern Syria targeting IS militants. It marked the first time Iran had fired its missiles in anger since its 1980s war with Iraq.

That raised new concerns in the West about its ballistic missile program amid the unraveling of its nuclear deal with world powers. That deal is now in danger of collapse with America’s withdrawal from the accord. Economic problems, water scarcity and other woes meanwhile have led to protests in Iran.

Iran remains one of the world’s top executioners. It was second only to China in 2017 in the number of known executions carried out, conducting over 500 hangings, according to Amnesty International.

The IS executions come as controversy still swirls in Iran around the country’s mass executions of 1988 near the end of the Iran-Iraq War. Activists at the time said Iran executed as many as 5,000 people after sham trials of Communists, Kurdish separatists, political prisoners and members of an Iranian exile group known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq.

Those executions represent one of the darkest moments of Iran’s post-revolution history and are still not recognized by its government.

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Amnesty International and Justice for Iran accuse Iran of building over at least seven mass graves in six provinces containing thousands of bodies from executions of suspected Mujahedeen-e Khalq towards the end of the 1980-88 war.