US troops have allowed the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) to secretly keep weapons inside their camp in Iraq, a defected member of the group says.
“After the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, US troops appeared to have disarmed the MKO members at the camp, but in reality this did not happen,” Maryam Sanjabi, an ex-MKO member, told Press TV.
According to the organization’s defected members, since 2003 the leaders of the camp have been training the members on how to launch attacks against Iraqi forces if they tried to enter the camp.
“When the Iraqi government decided to set up a police station inside the camp, the situation got complex and the organization decided to fight back by preventing its members from communicating with the outside world,” Sanjabi added.
Former members have described life at the MKO’s Camp Ashraf as miserable, saying the organization has been brainwashing its members for the last two decades.
They say that the MKO members who reside in the camp are deprived of basic human rights. For example, they are not allowed to use the phone or internet or even communicate with the outside world by any means.
They further explained that the residents of the camp have to show blind obedience to their leaders or face the death penalty.
“MKO is a cult with an ideology of its own. Those in the camp are deprived of basic rights and must follow their superiors without any questions asked ,”Sanjabi went on to say.
The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community, and is responsible for numerous terrorist acts against both Iranians and Iraqis.
The group is especially notorious in Iran for siding with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
It has also claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks and the assassination of significant figures and ordinary civilians in Iran over the past three decades.
