The other hostages were freed, Mehr quoted the commander of the Guards’ ground forces, Mohammad Pakpour as saying. The other person killed was a hostage-taker, he said. Some people were injured, the report said, but gave no details. The six were seized from a bus on Thursday morning. Pakpour said Jundullah, a rebel group, was behind the abduction of five soldiers and a bank employee in Sistan-Baluchistan, an impoverished Iranian province bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“It seems that there is a remainder of the Rigi group whose purpose is to scare people and cause division in the area and to commit extortion,” he said, referring to the former rebel leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, who was executed in June.

Jundullah killed at least 28 people, including Revolutionary Guards members, in a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in the province in July, an attack it said was a response to Rigi’s execution.

Iran says Jundullah has links to Al-Qaeda and in the past has accused Pakistan, Britain and the United States of backing Jundullah to create instability in the southeast of Iran. All three countries deny the accusation.

Jundullah says it fights for the rights of Iran’s Sunni minority and denies any association with Al-Qaeda.

Meanwhile, Iran sentenced a female human rights activist to six years in prison on Saturday, the latest sign of its determination to punish those the state views as “seditionists” for protesting last year’s presidential election.

Shiva Nazar Ahari, 26, was arrested in December on her way to the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the mentor of the Green movement which opposed the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last June.

She was convicted of gathering and plotting to commit crime (against the state), propaganda against the establishment and “moharebe” or waging war against God, a crime that can be punished by death under the Islamic Republic’s Shariah law.

In addition to the jail term she has to pay a $400 fine as an alternative punishment to 74 lashes, her lawyer Mohammad Sharif said.