MKO terrorist group Kills Dissident Member to Suppress Protests Inside Ashraf
Leaders of the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) killed a dissident member of the group in a bid to suppress growing discontent among MKO members in its main training camp in Northern Iraq.
According to a report by the Habilian Association, an Iran-based human rights group, Ahmad Razzani, a veteran member of the MKO, was killed inside the Camp of New Iraq (formerly known as Camp Ashraf), about 60 km North of Baghdad.
The report said that the move by the MKO ringleaders came after they failed to brainwash their inferiors to convince them to distant themselves from their family members who have been waiting outside the camp for the last 10 months demanding freedom of their relatives.
The right group said after the brainwash policy and efforts of the MKO leaders failed, discontent and protest has both widened and deepened among MKO members.
The report further refuted the claim raised by the MKO leaders that Razzani had hanged himself in the camp’s kitchen in an act of suicide, and stressed that Razzani’s murder on Thursday was the result of this growing discontent and protests among members of the terrorist group.
The report also pointed out that the Iraqi physician and coroner of the camp has refused to confirm the victim’s death as an act of suicide and that Razzani’s body has been sent to Baghdad for post-mortem studies and forensic tests.
Earlier reports coming out from the main training camp of MKO in Northern Iraq had said that a large number of MKO’s deprecating members started riots and angry protests to end their forced presence in Camp Ashraf.
According to an August report by the Habilian Association, the MKO leaders have increased their pressures and control over the members of the terrorist group to prevent possible defection and escape by unsatisfied members.
Reports also said that all exit and entry doors have been locked and none of the members, even those suffering from acute diseases and illnesses, are allowed to leave the camp.
MKO ringleaders have ordered the camp guards to stage snap inspections of the group’s members and their personal belongings under the pretext of finding the lost weapons.
Such behaviors have sparked discontent among a number of MKO members and made them escape the camp and return to their anguished families.
The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a letter last year 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).
The group, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and Western targets.
The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution 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 the 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 MKO has been in Iraq’s Diyala province since the 1980s.
Iraqi security forces took control of the training base of the MKO at Camp Ashraf – about 60km (37 miles) north of Baghdad – last year and detained dozens of the members of the terrorist group.
The Iraqi authority also changed the name of the military center from Camp Ashraf to the Camp of New Iraq.
Many of the MKO members have abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.
A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.