Iran has arrested seven members of the main opposition group over the post-election unrest that swept the Islamic republic in June, the official IRNA news agency reported. "These people profited from the troubles after the June 12 presidential election to provoke people and wage their counter-revolutionary activities," said Ali Eftekari, deputy prosecutor in the northern province of Qazvin where they were arrested.

"These young people had links with the hypocrites based in Iraq," he said, using the Iranian official term for the People''s Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI).

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Tehran and other cities last month to protest at the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which his rivals charge was rigged.

Eftekari said the arrested militants played a major role in the unrest in Tehran and incited people to join demonstratins in Qazin.

Founded in 1965 with the aim of overthrowing the US-backed shah and then the Islamic regime, the PMOI has in the past operated an armed group inside Iran.

It was the armed wing of the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran but renounced violence in June 2001.