TEHRAN: The Sunni extremist group Jaish-ul Adl has claimed responsibility for the assassination of a public prosecutor in Iran’s restive southeast, media reports said Thursday.

The reports came a day after Mousa Nouri, prosecutor of the city of Zabol which lies near the Afghan border in Sistan-Balochistan province, was gunned down in a “terrorist attack,” according to officials.

Jaish-ul Adl, the rebel group formed last year whose name means ‘Army of Justice’ in Arabic, said in a statement Wednesday night that the assassination was carried out in retaliation for a mass hanging last week.

“After the hanging of 16 innocent young Balochis, the fighters decided to take revenge and kill a judicial official,” read the statement posted on the group’s website, jaishuladl.blogspot.fr.

Home to a large Sunni minority, the province of Sistan-Balochistan has been the scene of fresh unrest in recent weeks.

The group carried out an ambush on Iranian border soldiers on October 25, killing 14 of them.

In response, the authorities in Shia-dominated Iran executed 16 “rebels” – eight Sunni insurgents and eight drug traffickers.

Security forces later killed four rebels in a separate clash near Mirjaveh, a town close to the border with Pakistan, officials said last week.