Page 601 – Nejat Society

MKO defectors offered suicide option

A Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) defector says any member of the terrorist group who wishes to leave has no choice but to commit suicide with a cyanide pill.
Having lived in misery and under pressure for many years, Sanjabi surrendered herself to the Iraqi forces deployed near the camp last week.
Speaking at a press conference at the Iraqi Defense Ministry in Baghdad on Tuesday, former MKO member Maryam Sanjabi said, “When I was appointed as a senior member of the MKO leadership council, I was told that I could never leave the organization. Otherwise, I had to kill myself by taking a cyanide pill.

“It is a custom within the organization to exterminate its defectors. Such a measure on occasions has been emphasized by [MKO leader] Massoud Rajavi. Two members of the MKO leadership council were killed some 2 years ago when they wanted to desert the organization.”

“Even some members of MKO leadership council are currently held in captivity in Camp Ashraf because they have sought to defect. MKO members are afraid to disclose what is happening to them for fear of their lives.”

Having lived in misery and under pressure for many years, Sanjabi surrendered herself to the Iraqi forces deployed near the camp last week.

"None of the residents of Camp Ashraf have the right to contact their families… The only thing that can separate a member from the MKO is death," she said.

"The leaders of the camp have spent millions of dollars to train the residents of the camp on how to launch attacks and even encounter the Iraqi security forces," Sanjabi added.

On Tuesday, three MKO defectors gave an account of their ordeals during their stay at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

The spokesperson of the Iraqi Defense Ministry, General Mohammed al-Askari, said in a Tuesday press conference in Baghdad that the three former MKO members had escaped from Camp Ashraf and surrendered to the Iraqi security forces, a Press TV correspondent reported.
The official said that the defectors have provided the Iraqi government with the evidence required to shut down the camp according to international law.

The former members of the terrorist group say the residents of Camp Ashraf are totally cut off from the outside world and are often tortured and traumatized for any show of dissent. Consequently, they are afraid to escape.

Abdullatif Shadvari, a former MKO member, who escaped from the camp two months ago, earlier said, “The punishment of those who try to escape from Camp Ashraf… is execution.”

On April 8, at least 34 people were reportedly killed in clashes between Iraqi security forces and MKO members residing in Camp Ashraf.

Iraqi forces say there is evidence that the people have been killed by the organization itself.
On April 11, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the cabinet is determined to shut down the camp.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it enjoyed the support of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and set up Camp Ashraf in Diyala Province near the Iranian border.

More than 3,000 MKO members are residing at the camp. In addition, the MKO sends elements to Iran on spy and terrorist missions.

The organization is also known to have cooperated with Saddam in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.

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.

Iran has repeatedly called on the Iraqi government to expel the group, but the US has been blocking the group’s expulsion by pressuring Baghdad against such a move.

April 21, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MKO Exploits Crisis for Propaganda

The situation of Camp Ashraf poses complex challenges for MKO leaders with no easy answers.
The group leaders are the same criminals who have the blood of Americans, Iranians and Iraqi Kurds and Shiites on their hands and are the most hated by the majority of Iranians, even those who criticize the current government of Tehran. They find no way to prolong their survival except by attracting the West’s attention towards their bankrupt organization.

The recent clashes at Camp Ashraf were part of MKO’s propaganda campaign to buy support of the West. Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Al-Askari attended a new conference a day after clashes, he showed the media a metal hook used by residents of camp Ashraf to attack Iraqi security forces. [1] While MKO websites claim that 31 Ashraf residents were killed during the clashes with Iraqi Security forces, Iraqi authorities say that these people were killed at Camp Ashraf on Friday when security forces responded to rock-throwing and threats by residents during an operation to reclaim land from the camp, according to Reuters.[2]

Along with their misinformation campaign MEK have posted videos on the Internet showing some soldiers appear to be Iraqi troops walking around and in one case targeting Ashraf residents. The videos also show an American Humvee bearing an Iraqi flag chasing some people on foot around. You see one man throw himself in front of the vehicle. The vehicle stops right away and reverses away. You may wonder who those dead and injured bodies MKO TV shows and claims the number to mount 31 are. The videos are so ambiguous that CNN declared that it could not confirm them.[3]

Haider Adel is an Iraqi policeman who was wounded by MKO forces on Friday. "We were at a checkpoint to provide protection for them (Ashraf residents), but all of the sudden they attacked us with stones and iron bars," he said.[4]

The comments from Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh came shortly after a United Nations Spokesman in New York said 34 people were killed in April8 raid on Camp Ashraf.[5]"Our security forces believe that this (the deaths) has been done by their (the PMOI) guards killing those who were willing to escape from the camp", Dabbagh said in a text message to AFP, adding that government was investigating the issue.[6]"Similar methods have been used before by them", he added.[7]

The Iraqi military, which rings the perimeter of the 19-sq-mil (49 sq km) Camp, denies using firearms and says only three residents were killed – when they threw themselves in front of military vehicles, according to an article by Rania Abouzeid of the TIME. [8]

Things can rapidly devolve into violence, given growing Iraqi frustration with the organization, whose members exhibit a cult-like obedience and willingness to sacrifice themselves for their cause, Abouzeid believes.[9]

Although the allegations of Iraqi officials and MKO propaganda on the case are entirely different, one thing is sure and that’s the victimization of a number of human beings whom unfortunately, among them there are intellectuals and educated people that have been caught in a destructive terrorist cult. Deprived of the most basic human rights, they have no way out except absolute obedience to a power-thirsty cult leader who doesn’t hesitate to sacrifice his followers just to guarantee his own survival.

By Mazda Parsi

References:
[1]Reuters, Iraq to probe Iranian camp deaths, April 12, 2011
[2]ibid
[3]NEW JESTIC, Iraq defends violence!, April 11, 2011-04-17
[4]ibid
[5]Agency France Press, Iran camp victims killed by own guards, April 14, 2011
[6]ibid
[7]ibid
[8]Abouzeid, Rania, TIME, Could the MEK Be Evicted From Camp Ashraf by Iraqi Military? , April15, 2011
[8]ibid
[9]ibid

April 21, 2011 0 comments

Iraq unveils MKO’s hidden weaponry

Iraqi security forces say they have managed to discover a hidden munitions depot inside the terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization’s (MKO) Camp Ashraf in Diyala province north of Baghdad.
Local officials say that US troops had earlier claimed that they disarmed the MKO terrorists in the camp but that has turned out to be no true, it seemed that was not true, a Press TV correspondent reported Monday.

Camp Ashraf served for years as the armed training base for MKO members and provided the Iranian terrorist group with a massive shelter by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein,
The Mayor of Al-Khalis, where the camp is located, displayed photos of the weapons discovered in the terrorist camp and said that they were buried inside the Ashraf camp.

“Finding light and heavy weapons inside camp in a buried arsenal means they intend to attack the security forces,” Al-Khalis Mayor Oday al-Khadran said.

Meanwhile, Diayala police chief said that MKO leaders had claimed that they have already handed over 17,000 pieces of weaponry to American troops since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“If the MKO had 17,000 pieces of weapons then how many hidden weapons do they have now? We confirmed that they attacked us with knives and tear gas,” Diyala Police chief Abdul Hussein Damouk said.

Recently, MKO claimed that the Iraqi security forces killed more than 34 of its members in the group’s latest clashes with Iraqi troops in April. However, AFP reported that only 10 terrorists were killed.

Iraqi officials say the clashes erupted when members of the camp began hurling stones and attacking security forces with knives and other weapons while they were carrying out their field duties.

Two days after the clashes, the Iraqi defense ministry held a press conference inside the camp to show that MKO claims were baseless.

Since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the group has received backing from a number of US lawmakers who continue to argue that the MKO terror group should be removed from the US international list of groups that support terrorism.

However, in line with the new Iraqi constitution, Baghdad government has vowed that it is determined to expel MKO terrorists from Iraq by the end of 2011.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh has recently said that the cabinet is determined to shut down the Camp and disband the terrorist group.

Most MKO terrorists fled Iran after they carried out a large number of terrorist assassinations and bombings in1980. They formally settled in Iraq in 1986, enjoying full support of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The MKO is responsible for numerous acts of terror against Iranian civilians and government officials as well as many Iraqi civilians that opposed the rule of the country’s last brutal dictator.
More than 3,000 MKO members reside at Camp Ashraf. In addition to cooperating with US operatives in Iraq, the MKO reportedly dispatches its elements from the terror camp to Iran to carry out espionage and terrorist operations for some Western countries.Download Iraq unveils MKO’s hidden weaponry

April 20, 2011 0 comments

Iraq

Iraq: MKO presence violates constitution

Iraq’s foreign minister says his country will not allow the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) to use Iraq’s soil as a launchpad to conduct its terrorist activities.

In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on Monday, Iraqi Hoshyar Zebari said, “The Iraqi Constitution prohibits the presence of MKO or any other militia groups to have presence on Iraqi territory and to launch attacks against our neighbors.” “Constitutionally, this is not allowed and the MKO members of the Ashraf camp have to respect Iraqi law,” he added.

Concerning Iraqi military’s raid on Camp Ashraf on April 8, Zebari said, “This was a military operation intended to take control of part of the territory. Ashraf camp is not a small camp; it is 50 kilometers large.”

“The Iraqi military extended its authority over about 20 kilometers of the camp. No country in the world will tolerate any organization to undermine its sovereignty, to defy its authority, and to act as if this is a liberated territory or a state within a state.” Zebari stated.

“So they have to abide by Iraqi rules and regulations, and we have called on European countries and others to resettle these peoples in their countries, for them to go on and continue their struggle. In Iraq, their presence is unacceptable,” Iraq’s top diplomat added.

The MKO was founded in Iran in the 1960s, but its members fled to Iraq in the 1980s after carrying out a series of assassinations and bombings inside the country.

The MKO cooperated with Saddam in suppressing the 1991 uprising in southern Iraq and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.

Following the ouster of Saddam in 2003, the Iraqi government set numerous deadlines for the terrorist group to leave the country but MKO has managed to maintain Camp Ashraf due to US backing.

April 20, 2011 0 comments

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

Iraqi Foreign Minister Says Camp Ashraf Must Go

On April 8, 2011, the Iraqi military launched a raid on Camp Ashraf, 60 kilometers north of Baghdad. The camp is the headquarters of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (aka People’s Mujahedin of Iran), an organization opposed to the current government of Iran. According to the United Nations, some 34 people were killed in the raid and hundreds more injured.

The group was founded as a Marxist terrorist organization and was given sanctuary in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1980s. Today, Camp Ashraf is home to 3,500 members of the organization and their families.

During a visit to RFE/RL’s Prague headquarters, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari spoke to correspondent Joseph Hammond about Camp Ashraf, the pending U.S. military withdraw from the country, the tense situation around the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, and the transformative politics sweeping the Arab world.

RFER/RL: The United States is scheduled to withdraw its troops from Iraq by the end of this year. But U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently said that the United States could extend its role beyond that date. Does Iraq want U.S. troops to remain and, if so, in what role?

Hoshyar Zebari: Well, first of all, I think the agreement for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq ends at the end of 2011. And there are no plans to extend that agreement or to postpone the withdrawal. This is an issue that both the United States and the government of Iraq are committed to implement.
But it doesn’t mean that [the] American presence in Iraq will end. There will be a presence through the embassy, through the consulate, and also through the implementation of the Strategic Framework Agreement for Cooperation and Friendship between Iraq and the United States, which was concurrently signed with the [Status of Forces] agreement.
So we need some implementing tools for that agreement, in terms of training, in terms of advisers, in terms of capacity-building. But this would not be through a new agreement. This would be done bilaterally between the Iraqi ministers and its counterpart in the United States on various issues. This is how we approach the time beyond 2011.

RFE/RL: Will the Iraqi military and the Kurdish peshmerga militia be able maintain security in these tense regions after the United States withdraws?

Zebari: Well, the U.S. troops currently are not only in the north, actually. They are in different parts of the country. This is first. Secondly, I think that Iraqi security forces are capable of standing on [their] own. Of course, they will still need backup and support, but they are capable of maintaining law and order and internal security. That’s why, yes, after the withdrawal I think there has been plans to fill that vacuum, led by the United States forces. And the Iraqi military forces have some working mechanisms with the peshmerga forces in the north in order to avoid any misunderstandings or clashes in the disputed territories.

RFE/RL: What is the likelihood that the status of Kirkuk will be determined in the near future?

Zebari: This is a constitutional matter. Despite all the skeptics, all the people who raised the alarms that Kirkuk is the powder keg, it will blow up Iraq, since 2003 up to now it has not gone off. OK? Yes, there are disputed areas, claims, problems, but it has not led, really, to any all-out conflict or violence whatsoever.
This is a constitutional matter. There are procedures to address [and] resolve these issues. The new government was voted into power to implement this constitutional article, which is 140, which calls for the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk and other disputed territories. So it’s an obligation on this government.
Camp Ashraf Conflict

RFE/RL: Earlier this month, the Iraqi Army raided Camp Ashraf, home of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, which seeks to overthrow Iran’s leaders. The United Nations says 34 people were killed in this raid. The Iraqi government denies this and accuses guards in the camp of being responsible.

Zebari: The Iraqi Constitution prohibits the presence of mujahedin or any other militia groups from neighboring countries, whether it’s the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party], whether it’s the PJAK [Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan], or whoever to have presence on Iraqi territory and to launch attacks against our neighbors. Constitutionally, this is not allowed and the mujahedin or the MEK member [Mujahedin-e Khalq] of the Ashraf camp have to respect Iraqi law.
Iraq has a commitment not to extradite any of its members to Iran. Iraq has a commitment also to observe international humanitarian law and to have access by international organizations to them, like the United Nation missions, ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross], and so on. Yes, what happened was very unfortunate, really, but the aim was not to expel the members of the Ashraf camp to Iran.
This was a military operation intended to take control of part of the territory. Ashraf camp is not a small camp; it is 50 [square] kilometers large. The Iraqi military extended its authority over about 20 kilometers of the camp.
No country in the world will tolerate any organization to undermine its sovereignty, to defy its authority, and to act as if this is a liberated territory or a state within a state. So they have to abide by Iraqi rules and regulations, and we have called on European countries and others to resettle these peoples in their countries, for them to go on and continue their struggle. In Iraq, their presence is unacceptable.

RFE/RL: The U.S. government originally controlled Camp Ashraf following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. They disarmed the Mujahedin-e Khalq and transferred control of the camp to the Iraqi government in 2009. Has the United States government been kept abreast of developments at Camp Ashraf? The Iraqi government has called for the expulsion of this group and set a deadline of the end of the year.

Zebari: This is an Iraqi decision. This group is branded in the United States as a terrorist group, by the Department of State, and it was in Europe up until very recently, when it was lifted. Those countries who care about the fate and human rights of this group’s action, they should welcome them and they should resettle them in their countries. My government has requested such a thing from European countries and from other countries, to resettle members of the Ashraf camp in their countries.

RFE/RL: Where do you see the Iranians going?

Zebari: Wherever. Any country — in the northern countries, in Australia, in New Zealand, Canada, the United States, wherever.

RFE/RL: Right now, we’re seeing tremendous upheaval across the Arab world — revolutions in Tunisia, in Egypt, and uprisings in Yemen and elsewhere. What can other Arab countries learn from Iraq’s political experience?

Zebari: I think what the people of these Arab countries are calling for is basic rights, basic democratic rights, basic freedoms, representative government, elections, and being part of the decision-making. And Iraq has done this through the hard way, through a difficult, arduous road to building democracy. It hasn’t been easy with the foreign occupation, with the sectarian war, with the terrorism, with the regional interventions. But Iraq has passed the test.
Because what the Arab peoples in all these countries are demanding is what we have achieved. We don’t want to be the crown or the example, but I think Iraq draws a great deal of admiration [from] many, many people on the streets of Sanaa or Tripoli or Damascus or Cairo.

April 20, 2011 0 comments

Missions of Nejat Society

Nejat Society Announcement on Camp Ashraf Clashes

The clashes between Iraqi security forces and Camp Ashraf residents on Friday April8, can be Nejat Society Announcement on Camp Ashraf Clashes analyzed from several points of view. Either the act of Iraqi forces was aimed to set up a new station or to put pressure on the cult leaders to leave Iraq, MKO leaders should take the responsibility of the incidents because:

1. The opposition of Iraqi people and government against MKO presence in their territory is legal and reasonable regarding the MKO’s influential and active role in the massacre of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites in Saddam’s era.

2. Considering the fact that Ashraf residents are neither considered political refugees nor forth Geneva Convention applies to them, their presence in Iraq is definitely illegitimate.

3. Having morphed into a destructive cult, MKO is no more a political-military organization and Camp Ashraf has become one of its basic principles. Like many other cults, the camp is the container that keeps the cult members in and deprives them from all their basic human rights.

On April8th before dawn, forcing two members to commit suicide, MKO leaders make two hundred of the Camp residents attack Iraqi forces with iron hook and rocks in order to pave the way for the presence of American forces in the Camp.

Outside the gates of Camp Ashraf, families of Ashraf residents are picketing waiting for their children who are not allowed by the cult leaders to visit their parents. These families are eager to see their loved ones rather than getting the news of their death or injury.

Unfortunately, the cult leaders do not care about people’s rights or freedom. They force some of the cult members to involve in clashes and some others who do not obey the cult leaders’ slang are made scapegoats in bloody clashes. This way, dissident members are eliminated.

Families neither confirm nor deny the number of killed members published by the cult but they ask Iraqi government to remove labyrinth of bars in Camp Ashraf in order to make the cult leaders engaged in providing the residents the chance to visit their families and choose their own fate whether they want to leave or they stay in the cult.

April 20, 2011 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

MKO defected members in a Press Conference in Iraq

The spokesperson of the Iraqi defense ministry said members of the terrorist Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization, MKO, escaped Camp Ashraf and surrendered themselves to the Iraqi forces.
He said the defected members have given useful information and the Iraqi government now has the required evidence to shut down the camp.

In the press conference that was organized by the Iraqi defense ministry, the defected MKO members said since the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the leaders of the organization have changed their strategies and turned the camp into a prison and the residents of the camp are completely cut off from the outside world.

They also said since 2003, the leaders of the camp have trained the members to encounter the Iraqi forces if they tried to enter the camp. The said MKO ringleaders are using torture and pressure on their own members, barring them from leaving the organization and joining their families.

The former MKO members said many residents of Camp Ashraf, who are under immense pressure, want to escape but are afraid and unsure of the future. The said scores of MKO members have been killed by the organization recently.

On April 8, 34 people were reportedly killed in clashes between Iraqi security forces and MKO members residing in the camp north of the capital Baghdad. Iraqi forces claim that according to evidence, these people have been killed by the organization itself.

The group fled Iran to Iraq in 1986, and set up Camp Ashraf in Diyala near the Iranian border. The MKO has carried out many acts of terror against Iranians and cooperated with Saddam in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community
Iran has repeatedly called on the Iraqi government to expel the group, but the US has been blocking the expulsion by pressuring the Iraqi government.

Wisam al-Bayati

April 20, 2011 0 comments

USA

Should Washington Embrace the MEK?

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamini analyzed the West’s policy regarding Mujahedin Khalq as a terrorist designated group by the US State Department. The writer begins his article by posing a controversial question:

What should be U.S. policy towards an Iranian opposition group known as the MEK, or, correctly, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq?

Al-Tamimi finds it an appropriate time to ask the above-mentioned question following the recent clashes at Camp Ashraf where Iraqi security forces control members of terrorist MKO Cult. The following is an excerpt of his analysis on the issue:

..The question of support for the MEK was also highlighted by commentators such as Hussein Ibish, in the controversy over the Peter King hearings on radicalization among American Muslims. Specifically, Ibish argued that the hearings would be undermined and open to accusations of hypocrisy, as prominent advocates of the hearings such as Rudy Giuliani and Francis Townsend have been supporters or defenders of the MEK and have sought to remove the group’s name from the State Department’s list of designated terrorist organizations.

Ibish’s point is valid; the MEK should not be declassified as a terrorist group, or for that matter receive any U.S. backing, for several reasons.

First, the group’s claims to espouse secular liberal-democracy are little more than a farce. Its underlying ideology is an amalgam of Marxism and Islamism, resulting in what is essentially a totalitarian cult. As Human Rights Watch documented through interviews with former MEK members in 2005, dissent in the movement is not tolerated. Those in the group who criticize the leadership face solitary confinement and torture in secret MEK prisons for years on end. As is often true in that region, the MEK’s actions speak louder than its rhetoric-to-Westerners. If one wants to believe that the MEK has reformed, one might as well trust Hamas’s occasional declarations to the Western media that it is willing to recognize Israel’s existence according to the pre-1967 borders, although it is a hostile belligerence, rather than a willingness t compromise, that characterizes Hamas’s policies..

In keeping with its revolutionary ideological roots, the MEK has a long history of terrorism, notably in its support for the seizure of the U.S. embassy in 1979 by followers of Ayatollah Khomeini in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. The organization’s subsequent falling out with the new Iranian regime in 1981 had nothing to do with ideological differences, but rather power politics. Upon seeing its influence marginalized by Khomeini, the group launched a series of terrorist attacks on clerics, ministers and civilians within Iran. Later, the MEK was granted a base in Iraq by Saddam Hussein, and there is strong evidence that the MEK assisted the Baathist regime in brutally suppressing the Kurdish uprisings in the north and the Shi’a revolt in the south after the First Gulf War. The only reason the MEK has not carried out any terrorist attacks in recent years is that it was disarmed in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
[..]
The other major problem is the question of practicality. Those who argue for backing the MEK because it would allegedly help destabilize the regime in Tehran give no specific recommendations, meanwhile affirming that they do not endorse the MEK as future rulers of Iran. Supporting the MEK, however, would presumably entail some form of rearmament.
[..]Is there reason to think that the MEK would not seize power in the ensuing vacuum as their rightful reward? In such an event, from the perspective of U.S. interests, we would be back at square one. The MEK’s ideological principles, hardly different from those of the current regime, dictate a policy of striving for regional hegemony. Why, for example, would the MEK, after coming to power, wish to discontinue the nuclear program?

Although the U.S. government should urge the Iraqi government to treat MEK members humanely, it must not remove the group from the list of terrorist organizations, or work with it in any way. Instead, we should welcome the UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) announcement last week that it will send a special investigator to monitor human rights in Iran. At least the US could put pressure on the UNHRC to send a special investigator to monitor and report on human rights in Iran.[..]

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi – hudson New York

April 20, 2011 0 comments

UN calls for Iraqi probe of attack on Iranian opposition group

A United Nations statement issued late Saturday said it expected an Iraqi government inquiry into the Iraqi military’s deadly April 8 raid on a People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI) camp to be independent.

The United Nations is calling for a probe into the attack on the Iraqi military’s attack on a People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI).

The United Nations has called on Iraq to hold an independent investigation into the killings of 34 people at an Iranian opposition base after Iraqi authorities who authorized an April 8 raid on the camp suggested that the group might have executed its own members.

Wildly conflicting accounts of how the members of the People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI) were killed have highlighted the dilemma over the last remaining stronghold of the group invited into Iraq by former leader Saddam Hussein and disarmed by the United States.

The UN statement issued late Saturday said it expected a commission of inquiry pledged by the Iraqi government to be independent. The commission planned by the government will include prime ministry and Iraqi military officials as well as a cross-section of political parties, and is unlikely to meet that requirement.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dubbagh said earlier this week that some of the dead were likely executed by camp leaders trying to prevent them from leaving.

An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Saad al-Matalabi, said forensic tests that included US experts have been completed on the bodies to determine whether a medical team’s initial findings had been correct.

“They were shot execution-style,” Mr. al-Mutalibi told the Monitor. “The first medical reports indicated they were shot at very close range – gunpowder was found on the wounds.”
He also said they appear to be have been shot with handguns rather than the rifles used by the Iraqi military.

Deadly April 8 raid at Camp Ashraf

The UN earlier this week confirmed it had seen 28 bodies in a visit to the camp and knew of six others. It said dozens more had been injured in the operation before dawn on April 8 when Iraqi forces moved in to reclaim part of the huge base 70 miles north of Baghdad.

It said in the statement that it had repeatedly urged the Iraqi government to refrain from the use of force.

The Iraqi government initially said three PMOI members had been killed in the military operation and said they were crushed by moving vehicles. It denied that Iraqi soldiers had fired at protestors trying to stop the soldiers from moving into an area that houses the organization’s cemetery. Speaking to reporters taken to Camp Ashraf after the raid but barred from talking to camp members, Iraqi military officials displayed slingshots and home-made weapons they said the PMOI had used to attack Iraqi soldiers. Women, they said, had tried to gouge out the soldiers’ eyes.

Video released by the group, heavily edited and impossible to verify, appears to show Iraqi soldiers firing weapons as well as armored vehicles crushing some of the demonstrators. Another PMOI video released last week showed rows of bodies, many of them women, wrapped in white sheets and laid out as martyrs on the pavement inside the camp.
Iraqi officials say almost one-third of the more than 3,000 people at Camp Ashraf have foreign passports, including Americans and many Europeans. It was not clear whether they were among the dead. Some diplomats say the number with foreign passports is much smaller, even though 1,000 of the camp’s residents have ties to countries in the West.

US considers PMOI a terrorist group

The United States considers the PMOI a terrorist organization but has said in the past it would not bar members from returning if they are not personally wanted by legal authorities. While Iraq has made clear it intends to shut down the camp by the end of the year, members of the cult-like organization refuse to leave and other countries are reluctant to take them.

The Iraqi government has been under intense pressure from Iran for years to close the camp.

Camp Ashraf was the main military base of the organization invited by Saddam Hussein into Iraq to launch attacks on Iran in the 1980s.

After 2003 they agreed to give up their tanks and artillery in exchange for US protection and the designation of non-combatants while hostilities continued. But the US military handed over the camp when Iraq took over responsibility for security throughout the country two years ago.

The United States, which is reluctant to publicly criticize Iraqi authorities, has said it is ‘concerned’ by the report of the deaths.

By Jane Arraf, Correspondent

April 19, 2011 0 comments

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