June 21, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Sani 16, 1429

DUBAI, June 20: A group of militants said on Friday it had killed two Iranian policemen and threatened to kill 14 others it kidnapped last week in a volatile area near the border with Pakistan.

Al Arabiya television showed a video of two blindfolded men kneeling on the ground but said it would not broadcast the full footage of the killings to avoid disturbing viewers.

The group, Jundallah, had threatened on Thursday to kill 16 policemen it was holding unless Tehran met its demands, including the release of jailed comrades, the Arab network said.

A Jundallah spokesman identified as Abdul Raouf told the satellite channel by telephone that the group had decided to kill the men after the Iranian government executed two men in its custody.

“If the government does not free 200 detainees of Jundallah in Zahedan, we will execute the 14 others,” he said. “There are also some … clerics, five or six, in Iranian jails and we have called on the Iranian government and call on it again to release them.”

Jundallah, which Iran has linked to Al Qaeda, set a deadline of June 27 for its demands to be met.—Reuters