TEHRAN -- Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini has condemned the murder of five Iranian oil tanker drivers in Baquba, Iraq.

The killing of the five Iranian drivers, who were delivering fuel for the Iraqi people, was a brutal, criminal, and anti-Islamic act, Hosseini said here on Monday.

The bodies of six oil tanker drivers, five of them Iranian, were found dumped in Iraq on Sunday, one day after they were ambushed, AFP quoted an Iraqi border guard official as saying.

Three of the Iranian “martyrs” were Sunni and two were Shia, he added.

Such criminal acts are occurring while the occupiers of Iraq kidnap Iranian diplomats and make accusations against the Islamic Republic, ignore the insecurity in Iraq, and prepare the ground for the exacerbation of the crisis, he observed.