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MEK Camp Ashraf

Defector of the MKO reopen the black Box of Camp Ashraf Massacre

Ali Ardalani left the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) in 2013 after 25 years of membership in the group. He is an eyewitness of the deadly clashes in Camp Ashraf on April 8th, 2011. He writes his memoires of that specific day:

Before April 8th, the Iraqi Government had several times warned the MKO to allow Iraqi security forces to enter Camp Ashraf in order to settle a police station there but the MKO did not cooperate with the police at all.

In the morning of April 8th, Iraqi security forces began their run to penetrate the camp. During the first clashes some of male members of the group were killed but no female was killed until noon.

 Women had formed a human wall against the base “forty nine” to resist Iraqi forces. (Base 49 was Rajavi’s headquarters where his high ranking commandants were located. Formerly, the base was Massoud Rajavi’s safe house. Of course on that day, Rajavi was not there. It was just a symbolic act to pretend the importance of the base.)

The human wall was formed by young women. They wanted to pretend that Rajavi was in the base ignoring his disappearance since years ago. They cried so badly that the poor rank and file would believe that Massoud Rajavi was really there. This was another fraudulent show by Rajavi to give the false impression that he was in Iraq together with his rank and file!

Among these women, certain men were placed. They had archeries and Molotov cocktails. Surprisingly, the archeries and Molotov cocktails had been prepared two days ago. They targeted Iraqi soldiers out of the female human wall. They had been previously told that Iraqi forces would not attack women so they could simply throw their fire bombs against Iraqi forces.

This way, an Iraqi young soldier was killed. The forces who had so far avoided clash with females, began attacking them…therefore, at noon of several female members of the MKO were killed. The women’s names – mostly youngsters who were newcomers or problematic members- are Saba Haftbaradaran, Marziyeh Pourtaqi, Fatemeh Masih, Mahdiyeh Madadzadeh , Ensieh Rakhshaei, Shahnaz Pahlavani, Faezeh Rajabi and Nastaran Azimi. No high-ranking member was among the killed ones.

Male members were then interrogated in the meetings that were held in the following days. They were asked why they did not resist Iraqi forces, why they escaped the clashes. When the commandants were replied that the rank and file were empty-handed, they blamed them,” you should have resisted, more people should have been killed,” I even heard that they said: “Even if 500 people had been killed on April 8th, we would have won the battle. It was worth. The martyrs we offered on April8th helped us achieve the insurance card for Camp Ashraf. Not the Iraqi State nor any other person can look down on us at Ashraf. “

However, the world witnessed the shutdown of Camp Ashraf about a year and a half later. Members were expelled from the camp, humiliated and despised. Fifty-four members including high ranking members and commandants were killed after the closure of Camp Ashraf. Consequently, Camp Ashraf turned into the dustbin of history…

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MEK Camp Ashraf

MKO defector reveals mass graves near Camp Ashraf

MKO defector reveals mass graves near Camp Ashraf

A defected member of the terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) has located several mass graves near the group’s former headquarters of Camp Ashraf, in Iraq’s Diyala Province.

The former member of the terrorist groups said on Monday that one of the graves is located near the Khan Qarafeh village on the Versateh hill, which is about five kilometers from Camp Ashraf.

He said that the MKO leaders are claiming that the people buried in these mass graves are victims of ethnic cleansing in Iraq.

The former MKO member, however, said the victims in the graves come from different racial backgrounds including Iranian, Kurdish and Arabs, adding that some of the victims were eliminated for opposing the MKO leader’s views.

He also said that some of the bodies in the graves belong to Iranian border guards who were captured during terrorist operations by the group near the two countries’ border.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community and has committed numerous terrorist acts against Iranians and Iraqis.

The group fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where it received the support of Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein and set up camp near the Iranian border.

In December 2011, the United Nations and Baghdad agreed to relocate some 3,000 MKO members from Camp New Iraq, formerly known as Camp Ashraf, to Camp Liberty. The last group of MKO terrorists was evicted by the Iraqi government on September 11 to join the other members of the terrorist group at Camp Liberty near Baghdad International Airport and await relocation to other countries.

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MEK Camp Ashraf

Reporters explore Rajavi’s hideout in Camp Ashraf

Iraqi Security Advisor, Faleh Al-Fayad, and Martin Kobler, Head of UNAMI hold a Press Conference in February 2012 to extend the deadline for the relocation and expulsion of the Mojahedin Khalq from Iraq. The residents were transferred to the temporary transit Camp Liberty during 2013, consequently the camp was opened to reporters in December 2013.

The second film shows reporters exploring Rajavi’s hideout and the nuclear bunker at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. The camp was home to the Saddam backed Mojahedin Khalq, a terrorist cult, for three decades.

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Iraq

Iraq says no success tracing killers of Iranian dissidents

Iraq is hunting militants, still unidentified, who led a deadly attack on an Iranian dissident camp near Baghdad and dismisses suggestions its own security forces were behind the violence, a senior government official said.

More than 50 people were killed at the dissident Mujahadin-e-Khalq (MEK) group’s Camp Ashraf in September in an attack the United Nations described as “an atrocious crime” and which drew condemnation from the United States and Britain. Assailants took time to conduct execution-style killings and plant bombs.

MEK, which the U.S. State Department removed from its list of terrorist organisations last year, wants Iran’s clerical leaders overthrown and fought on former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s side during the Iran-Iraq war in 1980s.

The group, which has accused Iraqi security forces of being behind the attack, is no longer welcome in Iraq under the Shi’ite Muslim-led government that came to power after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam in 2003.

“The main thing that the investigations have revealed so far is that the Iraqi security forces were not involved in that attack and an unknown militant group was behind it,” said Haider al-Akaili, who is part of a government committee overseeing the investigation, which was demanded by the U.N.

Iraqi authorities have repeatedly denied involvement in the attack, in which camp residents also went missing. MEK says they were taken hostage by Iraqi forces and were flown to Amara province to be extradited to Iran.

Akaili, who is an official in Iraq’s Ministry of Human Rights, denied this: “Pictures of the alleged missing persons have been circulated to airports and checkpoints and we have not received any news about any of them,” he told Reuters.

The committee is headed by Iraq’s national security chief and includes representatives from government ministries and the intelligence service as well as the U.N.

Akaili added that 53 people had been killed, not 52 as originally reported by the U.N. which said its representatives had seen corpses with gunshot wounds and some with their hands tied. The additional victim had not been reported until now because his face had been burnt and he had not been previously identifiable as a camp member, Akaili said.

The last residents moved out of the camp to a new base in September. The camp had housed around 100 MEK members at the time of the attack.

Iraqi authorities have issued 148 arrest warrants for MEK members for crimes against Iraqis since 1991 but none have been arrested, according to officials.

The group which attacked the camp appeared to have had ample time to execute the victims as well as plant bombs in cars and buildings which it detonated remotely, Akaili said.

“The operation was elaborate, complicated and big,” he said, adding that MEK members who had seen the attack had shown a “serious lack” of cooperation with investigating authorities.

He raised the possibility that there had been a dispute within the camp and some of the attackers had come from inside it. Another scenario was that the seven missing people were behind the assault, he said.

MEK numbered 4,174 members in Iraq up to 2003. The U.N. has resettled some 1,000 while 1,600 have declined to meet with officials, Akaili said. The rest are being resettled.

Suadad al-Salhy , Editing by Sylvia Westall; editing by Ralph Boulton

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MEK Camp Ashraf

Monuments in Camp Ashraf to the memory of al-Qaeda terrorists

Head of the Diyala Province’s Foundation of Martyrs said the Mujahedin-e Khalq organization (MKO, a.k.a. MEK) was the first perpetrator of terrorist acts in Iraq after the fall of Saddam.

“After Saddam’s downfall, leaders of this terrorist group held meetings with some Iraqi sheiks and those who have been affected in some kind of the fall of Saddam at their garrisons,” Mohammed Saleh al-Shammari told Habilian Association.

He added that they saw monuments at Camp Ashraf built to the memory of the al-Qaeda terrorists who had been executed by Iraqi government, when they entered the military headquarters of the terrorist group three years ago.

Al-Shammari added that the MKO elements assassinated Iraqi people before and after the fall of Ba’ath regime.

Diyala province, residence of MKO members, was the first province in which terrorist and suicide attacks took place and the terrorist operations subsequently occurred in Iraq was like the methods of MKO.

Earlier in January, Head of the Security Committee of Diyala province Meysam al-Tamimi said a number of al-Qaeda operatives have been trained in the main training camp of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization in Iraq’s Diyala province (Camp Ashraf) to carry out terrorist attacks against the Iraqi people.

He added that a large amount of money and weapons were also funneled through Camp Ashraf to al-Qaeda and Salafist extremist groups to help them target Iraqis in acts of terror.

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Iran

Iran Wants Search in Camp Ashraf for Bodies of Dead Soldiers

An Iranian official said there is information suggesting Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorists killed and buried in Camp Ashraf some of the Iranian prisoners of war who had been handed over to them by the Iran Wants Search in Camp Ashraf for Bodies of Dead Soldiersregime of Saddam Hussain, and hence the need to search the area.

General Seyed Mohammad Baqerzadeh, the commander of search committee for the lost people at the Armed Forces Headquarters, announced the news in an interview with Tasnim News Agency on Sunday, adding that three days ago his organization had a meeting with officials of the International Red Cross Society and representatives of the Iraqi defense and human rights ministries in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz on the matter as well as a number of other issues.

“We reached some agreements in that meeting and it was decided that we visit some cemetries in the Iraqi Kurdistan, as some of those (Iranian prisoners of war) martyred in the camps might have been buried there. We have received some of the bodies in the past, but some of them have not been found yet – which needs search and follow-up,” he said.

General Baqerzadeh added that there is information showing that some Iranian POWs were handed over to MKO terrorists, who were based in camp Ashraf, by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussain and that some of them “were martyred and buried there,” which is why the search committee wants permission to search the cemetery of Camp Ashraf for bodies.

The official end of MKO terrorist group’s activities in Camp Ashraf came on September 11, less than two weeks after clashes in the camp left at least 50 of its members dead.

The remaining members of MKO terrorists were transferred from Camp Ashraf (now the Camp of New Iraq) to Camp Liberty, near Baghdad airport.

The MKO — listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community — fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, fought on the side of Saddam Hussein during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-88), and was given a camp by Saddam.

The group has been behind numerous acts of terror against Iranian civilians and officials, and was involved in the 1991 bloody repression of Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq, and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds in the country’s north.

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MEK Camp Ashraf

Camp Ashraf september1st clashes;What happened?

Facts on Camp Ashraf incident

[republished] Finally, Camp Ashraf was completely evacuated after a decade–long effort by Iraqi government and the United Nations representatives in Iraq. The relocation process of the surviving residents of the September 1st suspicious attack on the Camp was completed on Wednesday September 11th. The MKO’s spokesman Mohammad Mohaddesin told the Associated Press that “ the Council’s president elect, Maryam Rajavi, urged the remaining residents to leave over the past few days” although she had previously urged on the return of Liberty residents to Camp Ashraf! [1]

The mysterious killings at Camp Ashraf were considered by Maryam Rajavi “an instance of crimes against humanity”.  How about other instances of crimes against humanity? The residents of the MKO Camps have already been objected to criminal acts. Their most basic human rights have been violated by the group leaders for at least 3 decades. In July 2013, the former UN envoy in Iraq Martin Kobler told, the Security Council of the UN, “Of increasing concern are the human rights abuses in Camp Hurriyah itself by the Camp leadership”. He added,”Hundreds of daily monitoring reports suggest that the lives of Camp Hurriyah members are tightly controlled.” [2]

Because of such eye-opening assertions by Mr. Kobler, he was always labeled by the MKO propaganda as the Islamic Republic’s agent although his allegations were previously affirmed by Human Rights Watch, the US Department of State and the RAND institute. Mr. Kobler notified, “a significant number of residents have reported to the UN monitors that they are not free to leave the Camp, to participate in the resettlement process offered by UNHCR, to contact family members outside Iraq, or to have contact with other relatives even within the Camp itself.”[3] The killed Ashraf residents had been deprived from a normal free life, by their leaders. They were indoctrinated by their leaders to defend their”home of 20 years”, Camp Ashraf, to the death. They were promised “Martyrdom”and the “Heaven“by the cult leaders.”So let us say to the Martyrs of the Ashraf massacre that you stand at the zenith of the PMOI’s path and traditions”, said Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the cult, at “the ceremony for 52 martyrs of Ashraf”. She called massacred ones,”the generation of Massoud, with their unshakable spirit and triumphant fate.”!

After the resettlement of the 42 survivors of Ashraf incidents in Camp Liberty, the UN new envoy in Iraq, Gyorgy Basztin told the Associated Press that “What happened at Camp Ashraf on the first of September is a game changer.”He warned third countries,”It should be a wake-up call to all countries who are in a position to help to come forward. Resettlement is the ultimate guarantee of their security.”[4] However, UN officials say that resettlement process have been slow because many residents have been uncooperative with the process, complicating the relocation efforts, according to the AP. [5]

Seeking benefits from “results of these martyrdoms and the heroic epics in Ashraf” – according to Maryam Rajavi’s passionate speech – she salutes “mothers and families” of the assassinated members of her cult of personality. Nonetheless, the mothers and families of these members had no news of their loved ones for many years. Now that their children have been killed, they are saluted and congratulated on the martyrdom of their heroes!

As a matter of fact, the assassination of 52 Ashraf residents seems very unclear. The only films and photos of the incident were released by the MKO. There are no films or photos of how these people were killed. Tasnim News Agency quoted from an Iraqi official that the released videos of recent clashes in the MKO’s training camp reveal that “most of dead were actually killed by their own fellows at the Camp.”[6]

In the group’s footage of the incident, at least in two cases, the injured ones are wounded in arm or shoulder but in other photos you see the same people shot in the heads. The Iraqi sources told Tasnim,” Given its track record in liquidating certain members, MKO took advantage of the incident for more bloodshed and killed its members for propaganda purposes and to play the victims.”[7]

While the MKO accuses Iraqi security forces of carrying out the killings, Baghdad denies involvement with officials saying an internal dispute was to blame, reported the Associated Press. [8]

What happened to the seven allegedly missing residents?

The MKO propaganda claims that they were taken as hostages by Iraqi security forces. “Iraqi Human Rights Minister Mohammad Shiyaa al–Sudani and Georges Bakoos, who oversees the MEK issue for the Iraqi government, both denied Friday that the seven said to be missing are in Iraqi custody,” reported the AP. ”Busztin, the UN official, had no information on their whereabouts.”[9]

Massoud Khodabande, former MKO member and a member of Terrorism Research Centre , asserts ,”There is strong evidence that the aim of the attack on Camp Ashraf was to capture or kill Massoud Rajavi  on the understanding he has been in hiding there.”

Khodabandeh clarifies that the seven missing people have been identified as Rajavi’s close inner circle. So they”have been part of a pre-planned maneuver to rescue him in the event of such an attack,” he concludes.”The other members have been there to resist any incursion to allow Rajavi and his protectors’ time to run away.”[10]

Besides, the attack on Camp Ashraf had been predicted by the group’s propaganda websites. If they really knew about such an attack, why didn’t they evacuate the Camp?

By Mazda Parsi, September18, 2013

Sources:

[1] Schreck, Adam, UN envoy in Iraq urges countries to accept Iranian dissidents, The Associated Press, September13, 2013

[2] Charbonneau, Louis, UN envoy accuses Iran group’s leaders in Iraq of rights abuse, Reuters, July16, 2013

[3] ibid

[4] Schreck, Adam, UN envoy in Iraq urges countries to accept Iranian dissidents, The Associated Press, September13, 2013

[5] ibid

[6] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/5387

[7] ibid

[8] Schreck, Adam, UN envoy in Iraq urges countries to accept Iranian dissidents, The Associated Press, September13, 2013

[9] ibid

[10] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/5388

*Quotes extracted from Maryam Rajavi’s speech, published on the MKO’s website  –  Nejat bloggers are either former MKO members or have a family member who is currently held in Camp Ashraf. They have suffered deeply because of Massoud Rajavi’s crimes. While the Nejat Bloggers recognize that citing sources of information is essential ,we, as a society feel so strongly against the MKO that we have agreed to not include the group’s websites or links in our articles because we consider it as kind of publicity for the cult.

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Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

MKO Expulsion from Camp Ashraf Sign of Iraqi People’s Victory

A prominent Iraqi lawmaker called expulsion of the members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as MEK, NCR and PMOI) as a great victory for the people of his country.

“The day the MKO was expelledfrom Camp Ashraf was a day of victory for the oppressed people over the oppressors,” member of the Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defense Fraction Qassem al-Orji told FNA on Monday.

Al-Orji pointed to the expulsion of 3,000 MKO members (from Camp Ashraf) over past year and their transfer them to a transient facility in Camp Liberty near Baghdad, and said, “The MKO members have been transferred to Camp Liberty near Baghdad to pave the way for their complete expulsion from Iraq …,” he added.

The Iraqi lawmaker also pointed to the 100 MKO members who remained in Camp Ashraf on the pretext of selling its assets after the expulsion of other group members, and said, “These people remained in Camp Ashraf with the support of US and Europe in order to kill the time and make a full evacuation of the camp impossible.”

On September 1, over 50 MKO members, including top commanders, were killed in an attack inside the terrorist group’s notorious camp in Iraq’s Diyala province. There were around 100 MKO members in the camp at the time.

The attack came at the hands of a group of Iraqi people and the relatives of those martyred by the terrorists when they had joined forces with executed Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, in 1991 to crush an uprising by Iraqi Shiites.

The Iraqis who stormed the terror camp further demanded the immediate expulsion of all MKO terrorists from their country.

Earlier this week, Iran’s Intelligence Minister Seyed Mahmoud Alavi-Tabar described the fall of the MKO headquarters in Camp Ashraf as a natural outcome for an organization that has based its activities on criminal acts.

“The ruinous fate of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) was quite foreseeable, as any group that turns against its own nation is doomed to fall,” Alavi-Tabar said.

The Iranian intelligence minister stressed that the MKO actions enraged the Iraqi nation, and the criminal members of the group were ultimately consumed by their wrath.

The last group of MKO terrorists at Camp Ashraf, now called Camp New Iraq, was evicted by the Iraqi government on September 11 to join other members of the terrorist group in the former US-held Camp Liberty, now called Camp Hurriya, near Baghdad International Airport where they are awaiting relocation to other countries.

The MKO, 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 the 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 terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.

Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who argued for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

The US formally removed the MKO from its list of terror organizations in early September, one week after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent the US Congress a classified communication about the move. The decision made by Clinton enabled the group to have its assets under the US jurisdiction unfrozen and do business with the American entities, the State Department said in a statement at the time.

In September 2012, the last groups of the MKO terrorists left Camp Ashraf, their main training center in Iraq’s Diyala province. They have been transferred to Camp Liberty.

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Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

Zebari – presence of MKO terrorists in Iraq is no longer tolerable

Iraq Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari noted that the presence in Iraq of dissident groups and terror militants was no longer tolerable – directly referring to MKO members .

He called on the UN and Western countries to honor their promises and relocate all militants out of Iraq as soon as possible.

In a statement on Saturday, the United Nations office in Baghdad said Iraqi authorities are planning to relocate dozens of the MKO members from the camp (now Camp of New Iraq) where 52 residents were killed last week.

The UN office added that the authorities will transfer the remaining residents of Camp Ashraf in northeastern Iraq to another facility in the Baghdad area.

Also, Ali Mussawi, spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, had stressed on Saturday that Baghdad has "the right to order them to leave."

Camp Ashraf houses members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (also known as MEK), which Baghdad says is in the country illegally.

Last week, over 52 terrorists, including top MKO commanders, were killed in an attack on Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s eastern Diyala Province.

The group has accused Iraqi troops of carrying out the assault.

The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has set up a probe into the incident. Iraqi officials say no Iraqi troops entered the camp.

The Iraqi officials said the violence began with infighting among camp residents. Others suggest explosions at the camp were triggered by mortar fire.

Some 3,000 MKO members were relocated to Camp Liberty on the outskirts of Baghdad last year but some 100 people stayed on at the camp.

In December 2011, the United Nations and Baghdad agreed to relocate some 3,000 MKO members from Camp New Iraq.

The MKO is considered as a terrorist group since it has been behind many cases of bombings and assassinations against the Iranian officials and people

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