The Association for Defending Victims of Terrorism, an Iran-based right group, strongly criticized a US daily for its support for the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) and its politically-tainted attitude towards terrorism.
"We the families of the terror victims of the Middle-East, including Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait and thousands of Iranians who have been suffering years of pain, condemn any terrorist act, anywhere in the world and against any one, avoiding any classification between good and bad terrorism," the association said in a letter to the US daily, Boston Globe.
"Therefore, we believe that considering this phenomenon under any political issue in which the centrality and priority of human beings are sacrificed for short-term political interests brings about a challenge in the global fight against terrorism that keeps us away from the basic humanitarian goals," the letter added.
"However, countries should fight against all terrorist groups in the same way that they condemn the Al-Qaeda. They have to consider it as a humanitarian issue (beyond political ups and downs) and seriously fight against terrorist cults such as the Mojahedin-e Khlaq Organization (MKO) which has a complete record of terrorist crimes, including the murder of 7 American military counselors, thousands of Iraqis (25000 people) and thousands of Iranians (12000 Iranians) and the citizens of other countries, including Kuwait."
"In fact the danger of this group is no less than the Al-Qaeda and we, the families of terrorism victims in the Middle East who are themselves the victims of this group, consider the danger of this group far more than the Al-Qaeda," the letter concluded.
After clashes between Iraqi security forces and MKO members in the group’s main training camp in Iraq, the US daily called the attack as "massacre" and claimed that the Iraqi forces’ attack on Camp Ashraf proves what it called Iran’s dangerous influence in Iraq.
The daily also said in its editorial that the United States and its allies must act quickly to relocate abroad some 3,000 MKO members still stationed in Camp Ashraf.
"Toward this end, the State Department needs to remove the group from its terrorist list," the daily wrote.
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 – in 2009 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 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.
According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.
Numerous articles and letters posted on the Internet by family members of MKO recruits confirm reports of the horrific abuse that the group inflicts on its own members and the alluring recruitment methods it uses.
The most shocking of such stories includes accounts given by former British MKO member Ann Singleton and Mustafa Mohammadi — the father of an Iranian-Canadian girl who was drawn into the group during an MKO recruitment campaign in Canada.
Mohammadi recounts his desperate efforts to contact his daughter, who disappeared several years ago – a result of what the MKO called a ‘two-month tour’ of Camp Ashraf for teenagers.
He also explains how the group forces the families of its recruits to take part in pro-MKO demonstrations in Western countries by threatening to kill their loved ones.
Lacking a foothold in Iran, the terrorist group recruits ill-informed teens from Iranian immigrant communities in Western states and blocks their departure afterwards.
The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.
Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.
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).
Iraq had announced earlier this month that members of the terrorist group must leave by the end of 2011.
Earlier this week, the Baghdad government assured Iranian officials and people that it is determined to expel the terrorist organization from Iraq by the end of 2011.
"Expulsion of the MKO from Iraq’s soil and termination of its presence which has lasted for several years is a definite decision," Iraqi Government Spokesman Ali Al-Dabbaq told FNA, adding, "The MKO will be expelled from Iraq by the end of the current year."
"The only option for the members of the MKO is leaving Iraq and they have no other choice," he reiterated.
Reminding the black record of the terrorist group and its crimes against the Iraqi people, Dabbaq said "collaboration with the former Iraqi dictator and massacre of thousands of our people is just part of their crimes".