Protests in Tehran against EU removing PMOI group from terror list
Hundreds of Iranian students, pupils and families of veterans of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) staged a protest gathering in Tehran Sunday against the decision by European Union foreign ministers to remove the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) from their list of terrorist organizations.
The crowd first gathered in front of the French embassy in Tehran and shouted slogans against France and the EU for their intention to approve the decision in favour of the PMOI at a meeting Monday in Brussels.
The official news agency IRNA reported that a similar protest gathering was to be held later Sunday in front of the German embassy in Tehran but according to the demonstrators themselves, the next protest gathering would be on Monday in front of the British embassy.
The EU move followed a ruling by the European Court in Luxembourg, which in December said the EU was wrong to keep the PMOI’s assets frozen after it was taken off a British list of terrorist organizations.
Iran regards PMOI as a terror group due to its involvement in the assassinations of several high-ranking Iranian officials, including the president and prime minister in 1980.
After the group was expelled from France in the 1980s, former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein allocated a military base to the PMOI near the border with Iran.
Before the ouster of Saddam, the PMOI frequently infiltrated Iranian territory, leading to clashes with Iranian forces and casualties on both sides.
Middle East
During his speech on New Year’s Day to celebrate the official transfer of Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone to Iraqi control, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared Jan. 1 the “day of sovereignty” and congratulated his
compatriots for having waited so long. He also warned that an Iranian resistance group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), would no longer be able to have a base on Iraqi territory.
To some Western observers in Baghdad, it seemed like an odd thing for al-Maliki to mention, given the more momentous theme of the day. The MEK is an obscure group known for launching attacks on Iran in the 1980s and ’90s, when Iraq and Iran were bitter, warring enemies. But since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the MEK has been stripped of its weapons, confined to its base at Camp Ashraf about 80 miles north of Baghdad and guarded by U.S. troops. The group is hardly an immediate threat to Iraqi security, or even particularly relevant to the challenges Iraq faces under the new U.S.-Iraq security pact.
But when the U.S. military formally transferred control of Camp Ashraf back to the Iraqi government on Jan. 1, the MEK’s fate suddenly became an issue. The group is a source of contention for Iran and the U.S., Iraq’s two biggest allies, who are increasingly vying for influence as Baghdad’s post–Saddam Hussein Shi’ite government asserts its independence. All three countries label the MEK a terrorist organization. Iran wants the group handed over for prosecution. But the U.S. has pledged to ensure the group’s rights under international law.
The question now isn’t just what to do with the 3,500 Iranians at Camp Ashraf — it’s also who decides their future. Past U.S. ties to the group suggest that the Geneva Convention isn’t the only reason Washington might not want to throw the MEK to the wolves just yet. But how deeply is Washington invested? The answer may lie in how Baghdad chooses to deal with the group.
Founded in Iran in the 1960s on an ideological platform merging Marxism and Islamism, the MEK worked alongside followers of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini to overthrow the shah in the 1979 Islamic revolution, and assisted in the ensuing U.S. embassy hostage crisis. But they clashed with Khomeini in the years that followed, leading to the killing, imprisonment and exile of thousands of the group’s members. In 1986 the MEK set up a base at Camp Ashraf, located in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province, and began receiving funding and protection from Saddam to launch attacks over the border into Iran.
Despite its position on the U.S. terrorist list since 1997, and reports by former members of abusive and cultlike practices at Ashraf, the MEK has gathered support from some surprising places abroad — especially since the U.S. invasion — by pitching itself as a viable opposition to the mullahs in Tehran. “They have been extremely clever and very, very effective in their propaganda and lobbying of members of Congress,” says Gary Sick, a Persian Gulf expert at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute and the author of All Fall Down: America’s Tragic Encounter With Iran. “They get all sorts of people to sign their petitions. Many times the Congressmen don’t know what they’re signing.” But others, Sick adds, “are quite aware of the fact that this is a designated terrorist organization, and they are quite willing to look the other way for a group that they think is a democratic alternative to the Iranian regime.”
The group’s Paris-based umbrella organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has held fundraisers in Washington. One of the group’s former spokesmen, Alireza Jafarzadeh, now serves as a Fox News foreign affairs analyst. From Paris, the group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, has waged an effective p.r. campaign, gathering a following of European MPs to support removal of the group from the E.U.’s terrorist list and to oppose Ashraf’s closure.
Even some Iraqis see value in keeping the camp intact. “We have many differences with Iran, and Iran is very deeply involved in Iraq, so I don’t think it’s wise to end the Iranian resistance,” said Salah al-Mutlaq, a Sunni member of parliament from the Iraqi National Dialogue Front. “For the Americans, surrendering the Mujahedin-e Khalq file to the Iraqi government is a big mistake.”
For the most part, however, the MEK is no more popular with the Iraqi population than it is with the central government. In his speech from the Green Zone on New Year’s Day, al-Maliki made it clear that the MEK would lose its protected status. “This group has been labeled a terrorist organization,” al-Maliki said. “It can no longer operate in Iraq after today because it has caused a political crisis that contradicts the constitution … We will never force any of these people to go back to their country … but Iraq cannot be a base for these people.”
The move to oust the MEK was anticipated, but the promise not to deport them to Iran was a welcome relief for the group’s supporters and human rights organizations. For months, the National Council of Resistance of Iran has led demonstrations in New York, Paris, Geneva and Washington to protest the possible transfer of Camp Ashraf’s residents to Iran. Al-Maliki’s decision not to hand them over may indicate a small U.S. victory.
While the U.S. government has remained relatively quiet on the Ashraf issue lately, Washington’s approach isn’t entirely passive. In a Jan. 1 press release, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad said an unspecified number of U.S. troops have remained at the camp since the formal handover of control to Iraq. “U.S. forces will maintain a presence at Camp Ashraf and will continue to assist the government of Iraq in carrying out its assurances of humane treatment of the residents of Camp Ashraf,” the release stated. The Iraqi government provided written assurances that the group would be treated in accordance with Iraqi law, and the U.S. government would remain involved in resolving the group’s future, according to the release. U.S. embassy officials declined to comment on what that future might look like.
Just two days after making his declaration to the MEK, al-Maliki left for a scheduled diplomatic visit to Iran — his fourth since taking office. The Iraqi Prime Minister was expected to try to ease fears that Iraq might be used as a base to attack Iran. He has pledged that won’t happen. But it remains uncertain as to what is in store for the MEK.
— With reporting by Mazin Ezzat / Baghdad
By Abigail Hauslohner – time.com
MKO with blood on their hands to be tried in Iraq and in Iran, Camp Ashraf to close within two months
Rubaie: Iraq to Extradite MKO Terrorists
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iraq plans to extradite members of an anti-Iran terrorist group who have “Iranian blood on their hands,” Iraq’s national security adviser said Friday during a visit to Tehran.
“Among the members of this group, some have the blood of Iraqi innocents on their hands (and) we will hand them over to Iraqi justice, and some who have Iranian blood on their hands we can hand over to Iran,” said Muwafaq al-Rubaie.
He was referring to the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).
“Over 3,000 inhabitants of Camp Ashraf have to leave Iraq and the camp will be part of history within two months,” Rubaie reiterated in a joint news conference with Saeed Jalili, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
“The only choices open to members of this group are to return to Iran or to choose another country,” Rubaie said.
“We are acting under international humanitarian regulations and international laws. These people will themselves choose where they want go.”
“Iran’s security cannot be threatened by any factor inside Iraq. Iran’s security is our own security,” the Iraqi official underlined.
His words were translated from Arabic into Farsi by an official Iranian interpreter.
Rubaie said that 914 MKO members had a “passport or residence of a third country” and could leave Iraq for these countries.
“Some 914 of them have dual nationalities and others who want to return to Iran will be allowed to do so,” Rubaie said, adding he would discuss the issue with officials from 12 countries to see if they would accept MKO members.
“They will leave Iraq in a non-forcible way,” he said. “Terrorist groups have no place in Iraq.”
The Iraqi government announced on December 21 it planned to close the Ashraf camp north of Baghdad and close to the Iranian border, where around 3,500 MKO members are held.
On January 1, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said he would expel the MKO from the country.
The MKO was created in 1965 with the aim of overturning the regime of the Shah of Iran, but now is seeking the overthrow of Iran’s current government.
It was supported by Iraq’s late dictator Saddam Hussein, and it had carried out deadly raids on Iran from Iraq.
Despite being listed as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union, the MKO receives wide support from Washington and London.
The European Court of Justice last month overturned an EU order freezing its funds.
Group members fought alongside Iraqi forces in the 1980-1988 war between Iraq and Iran and then settled in Iraq.
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).
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.
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 MKO members in 1981.
Europe: Safe Haven For Terrorists
The European Union routinely accuses Iran of sponsoring terrorism for their support of the military wings of Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, forgetting to mention that these are the armed wings of legitimate and democratically elected political parties, who have a legal right to resist Israeli occupation under internationalal law, and are only designated as terrorists organisation by the EU for political reasons – i.e. the EU supports Israel. But what is rarely reported is the extent to which the EU supports terrorist groups. It has reportedly been agreed by EU states to remove the anti-Iranian Mujahedin Khalq Organisation (MKO) from the designated terrorist organisation list in the near future, which makes an absolute mockery of the EU supposed objection to terrorism.
The MKO cult is notorious for committing countless atrocities in Iran and Iraq. In Iran alone, their terrorist attacks have claimed over 12,000 deaths and in Iraq, as well as committing war crimes against the Kurds under the Saddam Hussein regime, they are accused by the current Iraqi government of carrying out terrorist attacks and destabilising the country, despite supposedly being in US custody. The Cult also stands accused of assassinating and torturing dissidence and human trafficking. They have also used self-immolation (suicide bombing!) as a tactic to protest against their designation as terrorist organisation in Europe.
This is why America, Canada and the EU have previously refused to remove the MKO from their terror lists, and as recently as the 12 of this month, Condoleezza Rice announced that the MKO group would remain on the US terror list. So why the change in the EU position now?
Since 2003, Camp Ashraf, the MKO HQ, which is located in Iraq’s Diyala province, along with its 3,400 inhabitants have been under American military control – the Bush regime wanted to protect the 3,400 known anti-Iranian terrorists from being taken into Iraqi custody, so granted them protected status – but since beginning of January control of the base and its inhabitants legally passed to the Iraq government, who have ordered the base closed and all MKO cult members to either return to Iran or select a third country to be deported to.
Obviously it would be politically difficult, if not impossible, for any EU state to open up its borders and welcome 3,400 designated terrorists cult members with open arms, and Obama defintely isn’t going to do it. So quietly the EU has been dropping its resistance to MKO under the pretense that the cult has been disarmed. And the group has one a series of barely contested legal cases. Now that they no longer have a presence in Iraq, it will be easy to argue that they pose no threat to Iraq or Iran, and that might well be true, but this terror cult will be a much bigger threat to Europe than al-Qaeda ever was.
The MKO is committed to the violent overthrow of the Iranian government and enforcing their own brand of fascism, despite the fact that Iranian government was democratically elected (a point often forgotten) and the MKO is universally loathed in Iran and has a long history of anti-western violence as well.
stephiblog.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/europe-safe-haven-for-terrorists
TEHRAN – Iraqi National Security advisor Muwafaq al-Rubaie said on Friday that Baghdad plans to close down the Ashaf military camp where the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) members are held under house arrest.
Iraq is also seeking to extradite the Mojahedin Khalq members who have taken refuge in Iraq since early 1980s, Rubaie told reporters in a joint news conference with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili in Tehran.
The Mojahedin Khalq launched a campaign of assassinations and bombings in Iran immediately after the Islamic Revolution.
The group was supported by Saddam Hussein’s regime in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war but was disarmed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Saddam also used the terror group in suppressing Shiite and Kurdish dissidents in southern and northern Iraq.
Rubaie said, “Among the members of this group, some have the blood of Iraqi innocents on their hands and we will hand them over to Iraqi justice, and some who have Iranian blood on their hands we can hand over to Iran.”
“The only choices open to members of this group are to return to Iran or to choose another country,” he stated.
The Iraqi envoy said “Some of the MKO members have expressed interest to return to Iran and we are making the arrangements for this.”
“We are acting under international humanitarian regulations and international laws. These people will themselves choose where they want to go.”
Rubaie said that 914 MKO members have a passport or residence of a third country and could leave Iraq for these countries.
He said on his return to Iraq he would discuss with the ambassadors of the United States and a dozen European countries to see if they would accept MKO members.
The top Iraqi security official stated that hundreds of MKO members have already returned to their families with the help of the Red Cross organization.
The Iraqi government announced on December 21 it planned to close the Ashraf camp north of Baghdad and close to the Iranian border.
On January 1, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki went further and said he would expel the MKO from the country.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Rubaie said Iraq is ready to take control of its domestic affairs even sooner than the 16-months deadline set by U.S. President Barak Obama.
Iraq and the United States have signed a security deal that calls for the U.S. troops to leave Iraq by the end of 2011. However, Obama, during his campaign for presidency vowed to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months from taking office.
Iraqi people and security forces are more than ever ready to take care of the country’s affairs and currently 95 percent of domestic issues are controlled by Iraqis, Rubaie said.
Jalili also stated that Iraq’s repeated announcements that it is ready to take control of the situation inside the county leaves no excuse for the continuation of occupation by foreign forces.
Turning to diplomatic relations with Iran, Rubaie said Iraq has signed a highly important agreement with the Islamic Republic after receiving “positive responses” from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“We are leaving Tehran by achieving a very important deal because we raised important issues in our negotiations and received positive, strong and documented responses,” he explained.
Rubaie, however, did not elaborate on the content of the agreement
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=187569
The Iraqi government this week accused an Iranian opposition group of planning a suicide attack against Iraqi troops, a possible prelude to decisive government action to close the group’s camp in Iraq and expel its members.
The Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, on Tuesday denied Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie’s allegation that it was planning an attack. Rubaie, who made the charge Monday during a visit to Tehran, offered no evidence to back up his assertion.
The fate of the MEK has long been an irritant in relations between the government of Iraq, which has built close ties with Iran, and the U.S. government. The MEK received support from Saddam Hussein’s government and has been designated a terrorist organization by the State Department, but the U.S. military has protected the group’s base in Iraq, known as Camp Ashraf, since the 2003 invasion. U.S. officials credit the MEK with providing information about Iran’s nuclear program.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wants to expel the MEK. Iraqi officials have said the group’s continued presence has a destabilizing effect and hinders relations between Iran and Iraq.
The United States handed nominal control of the outer perimeter of the camp to the Iraqi government Jan. 1, when a new security agreement between the United States and Iraq came into effect. The agreement gives Iraq greater say in security matters, but U.S. officials said they intend to keep a military contingent at the camp to help the Iraqi government honor its commitments to treat the group’s members humanely.
In 2003, the U.S. military reached an agreement with the group that offered its members protection in exchange for their disarmament.
Rubaie told reporters Monday in the Iranian capital that”the Iraqi government has made a serious decision to expel”the 3,500 MEK members who remain at Camp Ashraf, according to a report on the Tehran Times Web site.
Rubaie’s statement said a member of the organization had turned himself in to Iraqi security forces and told them that group leaders had instructed him to detonate explosives at the headquarters of the Iraqi security forces. The goal of the reported attack was to embarrass the Iraqi government, the statement said.
Maj. Neal Fisher, a spokesman for the U.S. command that has soldiers stationed at Ashraf, referred questions about the alleged plot to the Iraqi government.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, the MEK’s political wing, called the allegation a”blatant fabrication”that was part of a”conspiracy”between the Iranian and Iraqi governments to build a stronger case for the expulsion of the group.
Maliki reiterated his intension to shut down Camp Ashraf during a speech Jan. 1, saying the group’s continued presence is a violation of the Iraqi constitution and troubles Iraq’s neighbors.
The MEK was formed in the 1960s to oppose Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the autocratic ruler who fled a 1979 revolution led by Shiite clerics. In the 1980s, many MEK leaders moved to Iraq, where they were welcomed by Hussein, who mobilized them in his war with Iran.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, three Iraqis were killed and two U.S. soldiers wounded in an explosion in Mansour, a district in eastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement. An Iraqi police official said the explosion was caused by a car bomb that was detonated as U.S. soldiers were leaving a meeting at a government building. The U.S. military, citing”intelligence sources,”accused the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq of carrying out the attack.
Earlier in the day, two Iraqis were killed in Karrada, in southern Baghdad, after a roadside bomb exploded near a convoy transporting officials from the Education Ministry.
By Ernesto Londoño
Iraqi security forces are in charge of the MKO training center at Camp Ashraf.
Details of an attempted attack on the Iraqi security center have been brought to light after the would-be perpetrator surrendered himself.
A member of the Mujahedeen Khalq Organization (MKO), who was to carry out the attack, turned himself in to Iraqi security forces and disclosed the details of the suicide attack, Mehr news agency reported.
The would-be suicide bomber is one of the residents of Camp Ashraf, the MKO training center and headquarters in Iraq.
The main objectives of the attack were targeting Iraqi security forces who took over the camp’s security on January 1, 2009 and dissuading the members of the terrorist group from leaving the compound or surrendering to Iraqi forces.
The Iraqi government has been seeking the expulsion or relocation of MKO, as it believes the group to be responsible for attempting to destabilize the country by carrying out terror attacks.
Earlier in January, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed to expel the members of the terrorist cell from Iraqi soil.
The MKO "is a terrorist organization and thus cannot operate in Iraq because it will create a political crisis in contradiction with the (Iraqi) constitution," Maliki said, adding that the group will be dealt with "based on the international laws".
The MKO has been blacklisted as a terrorist organization by many international organizations and countries including the United States.
The terrorist group targeted Iranian government officials and civilians in Iran and abroad in the early 1980s. The group also attempted an unsuccessful invasion of Iran in the last days of the Iraq-Iran war in 1988.
The MKO was also involved in the massacre of Iraqis under the Ba’athist regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
PressTV – Tue, 20 Jan 2009
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=83055§ionid=351020201
The non-Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), since the overthrow of the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, is seeking another alternative in the west. The MKO strove under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to become the Iraqi MKO and now is striving to become the Israeli MKO.
Since 1985 when the Internal Ideological Revolution and the Divine Leadership of the Rajavis were introduced within the MKO, and the cultic characteristics reached their full development, and since 1986 when the leadership of the MKO moved to Iraq under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and participated in the war against Iran and as well as suppressing the people of Iraq as Saddam’s private army, the organization not only had no presence inside Iran but it was also much hated as far as the Iranian people were concerned.
Since then until the fall of Saddam Hussein, the activities of the MKO against the Iranian regime included border assaults and sabotage activities and sending terror teams from Iraq inside Iran with the aid of the security forces of Saddam Hussein as well as political propaganda in the west. The assaults and terrorist activities were of course ceased when the dictator was toppled in Iraq and the organization was disarmed by the American forces in 2003, and therefore the activities of the MKO were limited to political propaganda in the west; the sort of propaganda of course which would pave the way for terrorism in the future.
Hence since that point up to now the MKO and its leadership have relied not on the Iranian people but on foreign powers to gain rule in Iran and at the present time they are seeking an alternative for Saddam Hussein (this time in the west of course) and have based their strategy on gaining support from potential enemies such as the US, Israel and the UK in place of the previous toppled enemy.
Therefore the presence of the MKO now is merely in the form of the Ashraf garrison (the MKO base in Iraq) and the Maryam garrison (the European base of the MKO in France) which initially is the problem of the newly formed government of Iraq and then the western countries, and is by no means the concern of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
As far as the Iraqi government is concerned, this government knows the MKO as a terrorist group and one of the many miseries left from the era of Saddam Hussein for the people of Iraq and a threat for Iraq’s internal security; and therefore the Iraqi government is demanding that the Ashraf garrison be closed forever, and righteously expects the western governments who have had their use of the organization against Iran to accept them in their countries for their retirement stage.
The political process to de-proscribe the MKO in the EU was begun some time ago. As the UK initiated the proscription of the organization (for any reasons), now the UK is again stepping forward to remove their name from the EU list of terrorist groups, and most likely this will be done in the very near future.
What consequences will arise if the MKO is kept in or removed from the EU list of terrorist groups?
As far as Iran is concerned, the MKO is a matter for the past and whether they are designated as a terrorist group or not would not have the smallest effect. Neither when they moved into the list were any facilities created for the Iranians and nor when they move out will any problem arise in their way. The opposite of course applies for the MKO.
As far as the European countries are concerned they know best how to deal with a terrorist cult in their own territory regarding their national security. If the EU is convinced that the organization is no longer a terrorist group so be it, and we do hope that their judgment is right and the MKO and its leader have truly put aside terrorism; although we do not have any indications for such assumptions.
From the Iraqis’ point of view, who demands that the MKO (who have cooperated with Saddam Hussein in killing innocent people) leave Iraq, de-proscribing the MKO in Europe is good news since the west has no excuses for not accepting them in their countries any more. In the last meeting we had with the Iraqi ministry of foreign affairs they explained that the ministry had invited all European ambassadors in Baghdad to a meeting and urged them to accept the members of the MKO in their countries as political refugees, but they all rejected the request and their excuse was that the group has been designated as a terrorist organization by the EU. But now the Iraqis can of course put their demands forward again.
But the only side who would really suffer from de-proscribing the MKO in Europe is of course the prime victims of such a destructive cult, meaning the members who will be more mentally manipulated when this is shown to them as a victory of the cult and will ensue their continued mental captivity; and therefore their families must pay the price by being away from them and have no news from their beloved ones.
On the issue of closing the Ashraf garrison in Iraq, the MKO is trying hard to make it an entirely Iranian concern. The west is also following the same pattern and demanding an increase in the price of the MKO supposedly for a deal with the Islamic Republic, and perhaps the policy of de-proscribing them in Europe which has started sometime ago is in this line. The MKO is pretending in its propaganda that it is a major issue for Iran and they claim to the world that Iran is striving to get hold of the inhabitants of the Ashraf garrison to take them to Iran and put them on trial and torture them and eventually kill them. Anyone who has the least of knowledge of the MKO surely knows that the claim made by the MKO is somehow ‘escaping forward’ [farar be jelow]. The MKO is merely trying to create such an atmosphere in order to falsify the main issue. Certainly the Islamic Republic is not seeking to get back dead bodies which the owners don’t want anymore. On the contrary Iran logically is trying to smartly use the dissidents of the MKO against it (refer to the quotations made from a western diplomat in Iran in an article written by Geroges Malbrunot in Le Figaro dated December 23) and it is obvious that the Iranian regime is more eager that they are moved to Europe in order to send back the products of a terrorist cult in the shape of human robots to their original place. It is also worth mentioning that in the time of Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq, Massoud Rajavi the leader of the MKO did not send the group’s defectors to Europe and instead handed them over to the Iranian regime. He said clearly on many occasions that the Iranian regime would not do anything to the members of the MKO who have no arms in their hands.
The leaders of the MKO claim that if the US forces move from the Ashraf garrison and leave the posts for the Iraqis, they would not have security in Iraq. This could be true since many Kurdish and Shiites groups in Iraq know this organization as their ruthless enemy who cooperated with Saddam Hussein to suppress them and would wish to take revenge. The solution of course is not for the US to keep their forces there for their security forever. The answer to this problem is that the western governments take them back to their own countries in order to preserve their security. It is worth pointing out that most of these people were political refugees in the west and have been recruited and sent to Iraq from there to join in the National Liberation Army.
Whether the MKO is designated as a terrorist entity or not and whether the US forces stay outside the Ashraf garrison or not makes no big difference to anyone and we are not much concerned about it. As far as the Sahar Family Foundation in Iraq is concerned and we have focused our attention on it, the inhabitants of the Ashraf garrison must enjoy free meetings with their families in some place outside the garrison and without the presence of the MKO authorities and they must have the benefit of having contacts with the outside world and also to have the mental pressures and thought controls lifted from them; and we will stay firm in Iraq and continue our activities until we reach this very important humanitarian goal.
An Iranian resistance group that has been living in exile in Iraq for decades is no longer a welcome guest in the country and may have no choice but to
return to Iran, where some of its members fear they could be tortured and possibly executed as traitors.
Some 3,400 members of the militant group the Mujahedin-e-Khalq — the People’s Mujahadeen of Iran, or MeK — have lived at Camp Ashraf, a 14-square-mile base north of Baghdad, since Saddam Hussein invited them there in 1986.
But the current Iraqi government, which took control of national security on New Year’s Day, has made it clear that it wants the MeK out. The government is unmoved by a sustained international campaign by the group that has included demonstrations and sit-ins in Washington and Geneva, Switzerland.
The MeK was founded in Iran in the 1960s, when it organized as a group opposed to the rule of the Shah. For more than two decades, it carried out a campaign of bombing and sabotage against the Iranian government, including the killing of U.S. citizens working in Iran in the 1970s, which led it to be designated an international terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.
The MeK cooperated briefly with the clerical regime that overthrew the Shah in the Islamic Revolution, but then it turned against the nation’s new religious leadership, as well.
Despite its history of violence and its official designation as a terrorist group, some U.S. officials have been sympathetic toward the MeK because of the potential that it could be used as a card against Iran. But now that the Iraqi government wants the MeK to leave Iraq, the group’s designation as a terrorist organization is preventing other countries from offering its members a new home, and they fear they may have no choice but to return to Iran.
On Jan. 1, during a visit to Iran, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki re-stated his government’s position:
"Iraq is determined to put an end to this organization because it is affecting relations between Iran and Iraq. This organization participated in many operations that harmed Iranian and Iraqi civilians under the Saddam regime."
Al-Maliki was referring to evidence that the MeK collaborated with the government of Saddam Hussein, particularly during the Kurdish uprising in 1991 when thousands of Kurds were massacred. The MeK denies involvement in the repression and cites supporting statements from, among others, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
Hopes had risen among MeK members and their overseas supporters that they had found a means of remaining in Iraq when the U.S. Embassy said on Dec. 27 that American forces would "maintain a presence at Camp Ashraf … to assist the government of Iraq in carrying out its assurances of humane treatment of the residents."
"It means the United States has recognized its responsibility to ensure the safety and security of our people in Ashraf," said Ali Safavi, an official of NCRI, political wing of the MeK.
But the U.S. government no longer considers MeK members in Iraq to have the protected-persons status the U.S. gave them in 2003, and is privately supportive of Iraqi government efforts to encourage the residents to leave.
The U.S. also doesn’t have the final say, as the Iraqi government assumed responsibility for all detainees on Jan. 1 under the terms of the Security Agreement.
The MeK once had the finest tank division in Iraq and harbored hopes of leading a resistance army back into Iran to topple the Tehran government. But it was disarmed in 2003 by Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, then of the 4th Infantry Division, who put U.S. guards on the gate.
By then, the MeK had many enemies in Iraq as well as in Iran.
Nabaz Rasheed Ahmed, 61, a commander of the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in 1991, said MeK forces attacked his battalion in Chiman, Kirkuk province, in 1991.
"Mujahideen fighters who were backed by Iraqi army helicopters and tanks attacked my battalion in March 29, 1991. They killed many of my Peshmergas and wounded a lot, including me," he said.
The military architect of that uprising was Neywshirwan Mustafa, 64, who now is chairman of the powerful Kurdish media group Wusha Corporation. When told that the MeK denied helping Saddam in his crackdown on the Kurds, Mustafa said:
"That is not true. They were working in cooperation with the Iraqi Army…. They attacked many bases belonging to the PUK.
"They occupied the road from Kanar to Kirkuk. They occupied a hospital in Kanar. They killed a doctor and many other civilian people. Saddam Hussein was protecting them in Iraq".
Abdullah Safir, 59, a Kurdish English teacher who lives in Kifri, in Kirkuk Province, says he was there when the MeK mobilized against his town in 1991.
"I knew they were opponents of the Iranian regime at the time. I did not expect them to intimidate people in a country in which they were guests, and to interfere in internal issues."
Safir recalled how the MeK shelled Kurdish towns "at random," took locals hostage, and in one incident attacked a busload of young people from Kifri, killing all 20. He remembers seeing some of the bodies when they were brought home and said that one or two had been run over by MeK tanks.
Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group, which analyzes the causes of conflict, has also investigated the MeK’s role in Iraq.
"The MEK has yet to own up to its intimate relationship with the Saddam regime, which protected it and deployed it against its enemies when this served its purpose," Hiltermann said. "It thus acquired its reputation as the ruthless tool of a thuggish regime."
Shorsh Haji, a researcher on Kurdish issues who lives in the United Kingdom, escaped from Iraq after the 1991 uprising with many Iraqi secret police documents and worked with New York-based Human Rights Watch to analyze the content. He said the mukhabarat — a branch of Saddam’s intelligence service — wrote in their reports that the MeK "heroically resisted the rebels and traitors who wanted to occupy Kirkuk."
The intelligence the MeK had on Iran made them most useful to Saddam — and later, to the United States, Haji said. And that, he said, accounts for the protection the U.S. gave them at Camp Ashraf.
One MeK member told FOX News that the group gave the U.S. the names of "32,000 Iranian agents working inside Iraq." She also mentioned MeK’s purported role in revealing the extent of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, though subsequent reports support the view that Israel actually provided the information for the MeK to release.
Iraq has told the residents of Camp Ashraf that they must be gone by March of this year. It has promised they will not be forcibly repatriated to Iran, but it is not clear where else they could go.
Sources told FOX News that the Iranian government has a list of 50 "most wanted" MeK members, around 20 of whom are believed to live at the camp.
In recent years Iran has made much of a new policy of humanely "readmitting" former MeK members into Iranian society, with the help of a group of ex-members called the Nejat Society, which means "Rescue."
Behzad Saffari, legal adviser for the MeK, told FOX News: "Anyone who repents or remorses the past are welcomed by the Iranian regime and can be used against the MeK. They are a useful commodity. But anyone who goes back to Iran and still keeps the ideas of the MeK — they will be executed."
Approximately half of the residents of Camp Ashraf are under 30 years old, too young to have been part of the MeK’s fighting past.
But this may partly explain why the MeK has outlived its usefulness. A Western diplomat told FOX News: "There’s nothing we lose from Camp Ashraf except a huge headache and taxpayer dollars."
Qassim Khidhir Hamad contributed to this report
By Anita McNaught
MKO is an exiled cult-like organization that resorts to armed attacks to destabilize the government in Tehran.
The US State Department has declared that the official designation of Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group is appropriate.
In a notice published Monday in the Federal Register, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the MKO group should remain in its list of terrorist organizations.
The US announcement comes amid Iraqi government efforts to expel members of the terrorist group. Baghdad assumed control of the security of Camp Ashraf, the main MKO military base in Iraq’s Diyala province, on January 1, 2009.
The Mujahedin Khalq Organization is blacklisted by many countries, including EU member states and the United States as a terrorist organization. It relocated to Camp Ashraf from Iran after the Islamic Revolution.
Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the MKO enjoyed the support of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain, who provided the group with arms and military equipment to launch attacks against the Islamic Republic during the Iraqi war against Iran (1980-88).
The Iraqi government says the MKO has played a significant role in destabilizing the war-torn country, blaming the group for terrorist attacks within Iraq.
The recent move provoked the group to file a petition in order to take the case to the court.”We will take the case to the court and we will win,” a Paris-based spokesman for the group, Shahin Gobadi, proclaimed.
The MKO has sought to have the group removed from the list of terrorist organizations, lobbying the European parliament and officials.
Baghdad urges the expulsion or relocation of the terrorist group, saying the MKO presence at Camp Ashraf may strain its diplomatic relations with Tehran.
In addition to terrorist attacks within Iran, which claimed the lives of 12,000 civilians, the MKO helped Saddam in suppressing Iraqi Kurds.