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MKO asylum grant violates intl. norms

A senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says granting political asylum to the terrorist Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) violates international norms.

“The MKO is a notorious terrorist group, and granting asylum to them (MKO members) is against all international standards,” IRGC Deputy Commander Brigadier General Hossein Salami was quoted by IRNA as saying on Sunday.

He touched upon Washington’s objection to the Iraqi Army’s Friday raid on Camp Ashraf, the MKO base in Iraq, saying, “The West always looks at the world with double standards.”

The top general underlined the West backs any country and group which is of benefit to it, even if they are terrorists or dictators, but counters any nation which is opposed to the West.

“In contradictory behavior, they (the West) try to show they are against terrorism by attacking Iraq and Afghanistan, and on the other, fully back the MKO,” he said.

Blacklisted as a terrorist entity by Tehran, the MKO was removed from the EU blacklist in 2009 but remains on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

The MKO set up Camp Ashraf in the 1980s as a base to launch attacks against Iran.

The terrorist group is also known to have collaborated with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the massacre of Iraqi Kurds in the north and the Shia community in the south.

April 11, 2011 0 comments

Iraq

Six Mojahedin Khalq members arrested in Diala, Iraq

DIALA- Six members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen-e-Khalq were arrested in Diala on charges of involvement in the acts of riot in Camp Ashraf on Friday, an official government source in the province said on Sunday.

“The six MEK members were arrested by Iraqi forces in accordance with Article 413 of the law after they were suspected of involvement in recent incidents in the camp that left dozens of its inhabitant and Iraqi security forces killed or wounded,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

He did not elaborate on the nature of charges that will be pressed against them.

Iraqi security forces had said on Friday that three Iranian MEK refugees in Camp Ashraf in were killed while the Iraqi security forces were trying to set up a security point inside the camp.
“The Iranian group clashed with the Iraqi forces, prompting the Iraqi security to open fire on them, killing three MEK refugees,” an Iraqi security source said.

“Two Iranians set themselves alight in front of the Iraqi forces prior to the clashes, while others pelted the Iraqi soldiers with stones, injuring six of them,” he added.

However, MEK sources had said on Friday that a Youtube clip showed an Iraqi army force storming Camp Ashraf, leaving 28 people killed and dozens others wounded.

The clip, shot by MEK supporters, showed Iraqi forces using armor vehicles in their raid on the camp, which had been under the protection of U.S.

forces after they entered Iraq in 2003 prior to transferring the responsibility of its protection to Iraqi security agencies.

MEK has been based in Camp Ashraf in Diala province, 57 km northeast of Baghdad, since 1980s during the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war.

Several politicians within the Iraqi government have been striving to drive the organization out of the Iraqi territories, claiming that the MEK fighters took part in suppressing the Shiite uprising that broke out in southern Iraq after the second Gulf War in 1991 against the former regime.

April 11, 2011 0 comments

Iraq

Iraqi government says it is fed up with the MKO terror group

Ten people have been killed in clashes between Iraqi security forces and members of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) in the central province of Diyala.

The incident occurred on Friday when the armed forces clashed with stone-pelting crowds at Camp Ashraf where the members of the notorious group are based, AFP quoted an Iraqi security official as saying.

"The clashes started at around 4:40 a.m. (0140 GMT) as the army was taking positions inside a cemetery in Ashraf," said Major Hassan al-Tamimi of the Iraqi army in Diyala’s provincial capital, Baqouba.

"The latest toll is three people killed and 27 wounded, among them 13 members of the security forces," Tamimi said.

A source at Baqouba’s main hospital confirmed they had received three bodies.

The MKO, however, claimed 31 of its members had died and 300 were wounded in what it alleged was a full military assault.

AFP reported that ten people had been killed and over 40 injured.

Visiting a US military base in northern Iraq, Pentagon chief Robert Gates expressed concern at reports of casualties and urged Iraqi authorities to exercise restraint.

But the Iraqi government said it is fed up with the terrorist group which has been launching attacks against people and officials in neighboring Iran over the past three decades.

The terrorist group is also known to have collaborated with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the massacre of Iraqi Kurds in the north and the Shia community in the south.

Baghdad would no longer tolerate an organization that had been involved in "terrorist activity and harms relations with neighbors," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s media advisor Ali Musawi stated.

Musawi said Maliki has asked European Union ambassadors to "accept them (MKO) and put them wherever they like, because Iraq cannot bear this any longer. It harms our relations with our countries."

Blacklisted as a terrorist entity by Tehran, the MKO was removed from the EU blacklist in 2009 but remains on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

The MKO set up Camp Ashraf in the 1980s as a base to launch attacks against the Islamic Republic.

April 11, 2011 0 comments

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

Iraqi MP: Iraqi people call for expulsion of MKO

The Iraqi people want the anti-Iranian terrorist group Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) to be expelled from Iraq, a member of the Iraqi parliament member said on Sunday.

In an interview with the Fars News Agency in Baghdad, Iraqi MP Hussein Ali said, “In the past, the group has been responsible for several crimes against the Iraqi people, including the people of Iraqi Kurdistan.”

“Cooperating with the repressive Baathist army, the members of the group killed innocent people, and Iraqis suffered very much during the Saddam era. Thus the Iraqi government is determined to expel the group from its soil,” he added.

The Iraqi MP dismissed the reports published by Western and Israeli media outlets claiming that Iran is pressuring the Iraqi government to expel the group, saying, “Iran has the right to be sensitive about the terrorist group in its neighborhood because the MKO has carried out many terrorist attacks against the Iranian nation. However, the Iraqi government’s decision to expel the group has not been made under any pressure from neighboring countries.”

Backed by the U.S. and some European countries, the MKO started its activities as a terrorist group based in Iraq in the early 1980s. In addition to the assassination of hundreds of Iranian officials and citizens, the group cooperated with Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime in its repression of the Iraqi people.

Recently, following orders of the government and in line with the new Iraqi Constitution, the Iraqi army tried to dismantle the terrorist group’s residential area, called Camp Ashraf, but the MKO members residing in the camp clashed with the Iraqi soldiers.

Afterwards, the MKO tried to exaggerate the incident and said that 25 people were killed during the clashes.

The Iraqi Constitution states that the country has no place for terrorist groups, especially those which attack neighboring countries.

April 11, 2011 0 comments

Iran

Iran refutes MKO’s ‘secret’ factory claim

Iran has refuted claims by a terrorist group that Tehran has a “secret” factory which produces components to make nuclear centrifuges.

A spokesman for the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) in Washington claimed on Thursday that a company site west of the capital Tehran produced "aluminum casing, magnets, molecular pumps, composite tubes, centrifuge bases."

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Saturday the factory mentioned by the MKO was not a “new discovery.”

Salehi said the factory located in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran, has been visited by reporters.
"We manufacture components there [in the factory], but it is in no way a secret," he said.

“There are plenty of factories in the country that manufacture equipment needed by the Bushehr nuclear power plant and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran,” he added.

Western powers claim Iran’s nuclear program has military objectives.
Iran strongly denies the charges, saying its nuclear activities are fully supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has repeatedly confirmed the non-diversion of Tehran’s nuclear program towards military objectives.
The MKO is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by much of the international community and is responsible for numerous acts of terror and violence against Iranian civilians and government officials.
PressTV – Sat Apr 9, 2011

April 11, 2011 0 comments

Iraq

Government forbids MKO terrorists from operating in Iraq

Iraq Forces impose security in Ashraf Camp

Iraq’s government took control of Ashraf Camp in the wake of violent clashes between Mujahideen Khalq and Iraqi Forces on Friday.

Iraqi State Minister and Cabinet spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh said in a statement to Alsumaria News that riots were spurred by Mujahiddeen Khalq members around the camp which required the intervention of security forces.

Iraqi security forces showed high self-restraint with rioters, Dabbagh said adding that 5 officers were seriously wounded after Mujahideen Khalq members attacked them by throwing stones.
Mujahideen Khalq group on the other hand accused Iraqi security forces of killing 28 people and wounding around 300. No sources confirmed this death toll while Baaquba public hospital confirmed it received 9 killed and 20 wounded, a medial source told Alsumaria.

Alsumaria TV, April 09 2011

Also on Al Iraqiyah TV (Reported by BBC Monitoring Middle East):

Iraqi official says Iranian opposition camp raid legal
Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah Television in Arabic, in its evening newscasts on 8 April, reports on the assault against the Al-Iraqiyah TV cadre that was covering the protests in the Al-Tahrir Square; Ali al-Musawi, media adviser to the prime minister, saying that the Iraqi Constitution rejects hosting any terrorist organizations in Iraq; Sayyid Hazim al-A’raji, leading figure in the Sadrist Trend, calling for supporting the Bahraini people in achieving their constitutional demands; and other political and security developments. Political Developments

Within its 1300 gmt newscast, the channel reports on the following:
– "The Al-Iraqiyah TV cadre, which was covering today the peaceful protest in the Al-Tahrir Square, has been assaulted by individuals who were backed by some media outlets with private agendas and forces that oppose the patriotic views of the channel. Some of the protestors assaulted correspondent colleague Haday Shakkur and attacked the cameraman, destroyed his camera, cut the transmission cables, and then headed towards the car to destroy the live broadcast equipment. The protestors banned the [Al-Iraqiyah reporters] to broadcast events in the Al-Tahrir Square."

Within its 1700 gmt newscast, the channel reports on the following:
– "Ali al-Musawi, media adviser to the prime minister, says that the Iraqi forces were executing a judicial decree to return 50 square kilometres around the camp [Ashraf] to their owners. Al-Musawi described the [Iranian] Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization as a terrorist organization that cannot force an independent country such as Iraq to approve its existence on its territories. He highlighted that the Iraqi Constitution rejects hosting any terrorist organization that severs ties with neighbouring countries."
– "Sayyid Ahmad al-Safi, representative of the religious authority in Karbala, has stated in the Friday sermon that the reason behind the widespread administrative and financial corruption is the result of a weak sense of loyalty to Iraq felt by a large population of employees and officials."

At 1716 gmt, the channel conducts a telephone interview with Ali al-Dabbagh, state minister and spokesman for the Iraqi Government, to comment on the Camp Ashraf incident.

Al-Dabbagh says that the government is working to forbid terrorist organizations from operating in Iraq.

– "Sayyid Hazim al-A’raji, leading figure in the Sadrist Trend, has called for standing by the Bahraini people in achieving their constitutional demands. Al-A’raji highlighted in the Friday sermon that the United Nations and Arab League has been called on to stop the bloodshed in the kingdom." Security Developments

Within its 1300 gmt newscast, the channel reports on the following:
"Tahah Ja’far al-Alawi, leading figure in the Iraqi Al-Da’wah Party and manager of the Al-Masar Satellite Television, has been martyred in a terrorist assault in southern Baghdad. A security source said that terrorists driving a civilian Mitsubishi car opened fire at Al-Alawi and Abd-Farhan Diyab, employee at the Department of Political Prisoners, in the Uwarij area near Al-Durah."

April 10, 2011 0 comments

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Right Group Calls on Iraqi PM to Close the MEK file forever

The recent assaults and armed clashes sparked by the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) at the group’s main camp in the Diyala province necessitate the Baghdad government to accelerate expulsion of the terrorist group from Iraq, a human rights group stressed.

The Habilian association, a human rights group formed of the family members and relatives of the Iranian victims of terrorism, in a statement issued on Saturday praised the Iraqi army for repelling the attack and soothing the new tension stirred by the MKO members in the Camp of New Iraq (formerly known as Camp Ashraf).
Meantime, the right group stressed that such moves by the Iraqi forces merely present temporary solutions to the grave problems and serious threats posed by the terrorist group both to the Iraq and Iranian nations, and asked the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to take the opportunity to materialize the Iraqi people’s call for the expulsion of the terrorist group from Iraq’s soil.

“No doubt, you (Maliki) should take the chance and close the case of the MKO,” Habilian reiterated.

Iraq’s government took control of Ashraf Camp in the wake of violent clashes between the MKO and Iraqi forces on Friday.

Iraqi State Minister and Cabinet spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh said in a statement that riots were spurred by MKO members around the camp which required the intervention of security forces.

Iraqi security forces showed high self-restraint with rioters, Dabbagh said adding that 5 officers were seriously wounded after MKO members attacked them by throwing stones.
The MKO has been in Iraq’s Diyala province since the 1980s.

Iraqi security forces took control of the training base of the MKO at Camp Ashraf – about 60km (37 miles) north of Baghdad – in 2009 and detained dozens of the members of the terrorist group.

The Iraqi authority also changed the name of the military center from Camp Ashraf to the Camp of New Iraq.
The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.
Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.

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, 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 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 also argue for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

April 10, 2011 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

MKO attacks Iraqi security forces

Members of the Mujahedin Khalgh Organization and Iraqi security forces clashed in the central province of Diyala on Friday.

Clashes erupted when Iraqi security forces began to return some of the land that was confiscated by Saddam Hussein to setup the MKO camp. Officials say, members of the camp began hurling stones and attacking the security forces with knives and other weapons as they were carrying out their duty.

According to the spokesperson of the Iraqi defense ministry, the Iraqi government has issued a judicial decree to reduce the 50 Km camp to 30 Km and have the rest of the lands returned to its original owners.

The commander of the Iraqi infantry forces warned the MKO that if they continue to incite violence then they will face strong reaction.

The Iraqi soldiers who were wounded in the clashes say the MKO members had been hurling stones at them for the last two days, and that the attacks against them were unprovoked.

The original owners of the lands had been urging the Iraqi government for some time now to get rid of the camp and its residents and to return the lands back to its rightful owners.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community, and is responsible for numerous terrorist acts against both Iranian and Iraqi civilians.

Iraqis have repeatedly called on the government to expel the group, but as observers say, the US has been blocking the expulsion by pressuring the Iraqi government.

Wisam al-Bayati
Link to the Video Report

April 10, 2011 0 comments

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

On Camp Ashraf Recent Clashes

MKO attacks Iraqi security forces
Members of the Mujahedin Khalgh Organization and Iraqi security forces clashed in the central province of Diyala on Friday.

the Iraqi government has issued a judicial decree to reduce the 50 Km camp to 30 Km and have the rest of the lands returned to its original owners.

According to the spokesperson of the Iraqi defense ministry,

The commander of the Iraqi infantry forces warned the MKO that if they continue to incite violence then they will face strong reaction.

The Iraqi soldiers who were wounded in the clashes say the MKO members had been hurling stones at them for the last two days, and that the attacks against them were unprovoked.

The original owners of the lands had been urging the Iraqi government for some time now to get rid of the camp and its residents and to return the lands back to its rightful owners.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community, and is responsible for numerous terrorist acts against both Iranian and Iraqi civilians.

Iraqis have repeatedly called on the government to expel the group, but as observers say, the US has been blocking the expulsion by pressuring the Iraqi government.

Wisam al-Bayati, Diyala
Download MKO attacks Iraqi security forces

April 10, 2011 0 comments

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

Politicians in Diala renew rejection to Mujahideen Khalq presence

Politicians in Diala province on Wednesday renewed their rejection to the presence of the Mujahideen Khalq organization in the Iraqi territories because of its interference in the internal affairs.

Speaking to Aswat al-Iraq news agency, Awad al-Rabie, a member of the municipality council of Abi Saida district, said “the council has proof and evidence that assert the involvement of the Iranian opposition group in supporting the armed groups, in addition to their continued attempts to flare up sectarian unrests in the country.”

He accused them of violating human rights in the Ashraf camp, as well as interfering in Iraqi internal affairs.
The Iranian opposition organization of Mujahideen-e-Khalq has been based in Camp Ashraf in Diala province, 57 km northeast of Baghdad, since 1980s during the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war.

Many political parties in the Iraqi government have been striving to drive the organization out of the Iraqi territories claiming that the Mujahideen-e-Khalq fighters took part in suppressing the Shiite uprising that broke out in southern Iraq after the second Gulf War in 1991 against the former regime.

By Haleema Al-Azzawi – Aswat Al Iraq

April 9, 2011 0 comments

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