MKO has primarily become responsible for inflicting additional wave of violence in Iraq
For sure there are credible but classified e
vidences that verify the close relationship and cooperation between the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) and al-Qaeda terrorist group as recently disclosed by Iraqi authorities. There are countless evidences that MKO committed numerous crimes against the Iraqi people in collaboration with Saddam and documents showing links between the group and several leaders of al-Qaeda terrorist network. To mention an existing concrete evidence, in 2012 the governor of Iraqi district Khalis announced the discovery of a memorial stone in Camp Ashraf inscribed with the names of some high ranking Ba’ath party officials and Al-Qaeda terrorists.
The Iraqi people have paid a heavy price for the restoration of order and peace in post-Saddam era. Despite the facts that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has spared no effort to rehabilitate ex-Baathists and pro-Saddam groups, the insurgency, whose members comprise both homegrown and foreign elements, continues its ferocious campaign against the government and to turn the country into a bloody ethnic battle field. The bulk of these insurgent groups are pro-Saddamists and remnants of the Baath Party as well as Saddam’s once nurtured terrorist groups like that of MKO to some extent. Of the second set of Iraqi insurgent networks operating at the present are foreign fighter groups, the most prominent of which is known to be al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
MKO has since the fall of Saddam played its part as a devoted collaborator with other internal dissident factions and unwelcome alien intruders as one of the many impediments ahead of Iraqi people. Being the masters of arranging psychological and propaganda warfare, and because it had to keep in shadow, MKO, while in Camp Ashraf, had established a secure, secret bastion of conspiracy for the Iraqi opponents. Although each of these opponent groups may have different ideological infrastructures and are on a different path of struggle to achieve a certain goal, they are squarely within the consensus of a violent antagonism against the legitimate government.
The main feature that distinguished MKO from other operative dissident groups in Iraq but encouraged them to have it at their side was its remarkable potentiality in practice of ideologically justified violent activities. What these opponent groups were looking for to propel their protesting engine was a revolutionary ferment which MKO was believed to possess. And that was the zeal MKO tried to fuel whenever arranging a meeting inside Camp Asharf, a revolutionary zeal to develop a revolutionized philosophical world outlook. Massoud Rajavi, the absent leader of the group, had already rationalized the group’s revolutionary ideology in an inter-organizational handbook saying:
“Without a revolutionary ideology, it is impossible to have a revolutionary movement, organization and forces because ideology works as our source of light and guide to lead us on. I have to assert that ideology is one of the most outstanding manifestations of man’s life. That is to say, man is the only creature that lives with ideology; his life and death relay on a belief and ideology that he is bond to it in all conditions and communes with it.”
Surprisingly, al-Qaeda and MKO share close similarities in their organizational revolutionary spirit. That is much because the two nearly show great interest in the same ideological teachings of terrorism. Since both al-Qaeda and MKO are considered foreign terrorist fighters that have played their parts in throwing the country into disorder, the Iraqi government is decisive to uproot any party that may foster a relationship between the violent insurgent groups. By closing Camp Ashraf, it has achieved some success, but the group’s prolonged stay and its resistance to leave Iraq continues to impact the persistence of disorder and violence. Now under control to cut any contact with insurgent groups, MKO has primarily become responsible for inflicting additional wave of violence in Iraq; that is, the sporadic, retaliatory attacks against the group’s temporary location, Camp Liberty.
