Different Iraqi groups in a statement announced that they have found substantiating documents on the massacre of 25,000 Iraqis by the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) during Saddam Hussein’s despotic rule over the country.
"In the documents found at Iraq’s intelligence ministry and other security offices after the toppling of Saddam, the leaders of the terrorist organization have announced that they slaughtered 25,000 Iraqi people on different occasions and over various issues," different Iraqi groups in the eastern province of Diyala said in a statement released to the country’s Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki.
Addressing the Iraqi government in their statement, the groups urged an immediate expulsion of the MKO members from their province and from the country.
The statement has been signed by various groups and people from different walks of life, including university professors, elites, tribal leaders, religious figures, artists, poets, sportsmen and sports federations, influential figures, students’ union and city councils of the Diyala province.
The MKO has been in Iraq’s Diyala province since the 1980s. The Iraqi government and parliament have also underlined on different occasions that they would not tolerate the group anymore and that they are seeking to expel the group from the country in the near future.
The anti-Iran terror group has been blacklisted as a terrorist organization by many international entities and countries.
The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).
A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.
According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.
The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the Islamic Revolution in Iran in a bid to take control of the newly established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the Revolution, including the then President Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar and Judiciary Chief Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.
The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.
The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.
The MKO was put on the US terror list in 1997 by the then President, Bill Clinton, but since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group has been strongly backed by the Washington Neocons, who also argue for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.
