Iraqi Government is determined to expel Mujahedin Khalq Organization from its territory but in order to fulfill its desired decision; Iraqi officials have to challenge the absolutely cultlike structure of the group. The problematic obstacle against Iraqi will is the nature of the terrorist destructive cult of MKO . Rania Abouzeid of the Time describes the incidents at Camp Ashraf based on Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN who himself seems to be not enough informed on what exactly happened in Camp Ashraf:
For years, Iraq’s increasingly pro-Iranian government has threatened to evict the 3,400 Iranian members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a fiercely anti-Tehran group, from its sprawling former military base at Camp Ashraf, some 40 miles (65 km) from Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and 50 miles (80 km) from the Iranian border. Despite the heated rhetoric, however, Baghdad has never fully articulated how it will uproot the exiles — who refuse to leave their decades-old enclave — beyond saying it will not forcibly do so. The dead include at least seven women, according to Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. "Most of those killed appear to have been shot. However, several suffered other types of injuries that would suggest they were hit by vehicles," he told TIME from Geneva. "It has been extremely difficult to gain access to the camp, and many details about the exact circumstances surrounding this tragedy remain unknown at this point. The Iraqi authorities and the [MEK] are giving wildly differing accounts."
The TIME correspondent view Camp Ashraf and Mujahedin Khalq as a source of contention in US-Iran-Iraq relations :
The camp is a major irritant to Baghdad’s ties with Tehran and is perhaps one of the strangest holdovers from the dramatic shift in relations between Iraq, its once bitter foe Iran and their former and current mutual enemy the United States. The MEK, which is also known by the acronym MKO and by the name the People’s Mujahedin, was given Camp Ashraf by Hussein during his bitter eight-year war with neighboring Iran. He funded and armed the group, which launched attacks on Iran from Iraq.
Although the camp was disarmed in 2003 by the U.S. military, both Baghdad and Washington consider the MEK a terrorist organization. Washington has blacklisted the group for its attacks against U.S. interests in the 1970s and ’80s. Iraqi officials have frequently said the Iranian exiles are "illegal aliens" with no legal right to remain in the country and that they must travel to either Iran or another country. They have repeatedly warned that they will close the camp, which was under U.S. military protection until 2009, when responsibility was transferred to Iraq under a comprehensive bilateral agreement. Deadlines for closing Camp Ashraf have come and gone. This week Iraq said the group must leave the country by the end of the year.
She describes the cult-like structure of MKO:
Camp Ashraf, with its gender-segregated dormitories, manicured lawns, flower beds and tree-lined streets, is the only home many of the residents have known. The MEK maintains firm control over its members, preventing them from marrying and restricting or preventing contact with family elsewhere.
Abouzeid views the issue of Camp Ashraf as a difficult problem to cope with due to the stubbornness of the MKO and the hatred of Iraqi people towards MKO:
The standoff is unlikely to end well or soon, given that the MEK won’t even consider relocating within Iraq (the government wants to move the group away from the Iranian border), let alone overseas, unless strict (and some say unrealistic) conditions are met. Kia, the MEK representative, says the group will consider returning to Iran if "freedom of speech and political activities are guaranteed," an impossibility for a group determined to bring down Tehran’s clerical leaders. "The second option is to transfer all of the residents to the U.S. or one of the E.U. member states," he says.
..
The recent raid wasn’t the first instance of bloodshed between the Iraqi military and the camp’s residents since the U.S. handed over responsibility for it, but it was the most serious. In mid-2009, Iraqi security forces briefly tried to wrench control of the MEK base from its leaders after the Iraqis were denied a request to establish a police station inside the camp. At least six residents were killed and dozens wounded in the ensuing clashes. Things can rapidly devolve into violence once again, given growing Iraqi frustration with the organization, whose members exhibit a cultlike obedience and willingness to sacrifice themselves for their cause.
MKO propagates the residents of Camp Ashraf with it’s increasingly accelerate machine:
The MEK’s slick and efficient p.r. machine is well primed to exploit the situation. It has a ready list of European and American political figures eager to defend it (and who are looking for reasons to argue against its terrorist designation in the U.S.). These include former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former National Security Adviser General James Jones and former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. After a legal battle, the E.U. removed the organization from its terrorist list in 2009; the U.K. did so in 2008.
