AFP

Iraqi Police Storm Ashraf – Iraqi troops seize Iranian exiles’ camp

Iraqi soldiers and riot police stormed a camp housing Iran’s main exiled opposition yesterday, triggering violent clashes that left at least 260 people wounded.

Members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq clash with Iraqi police inside Camp Ashraf yesterday. The disturbance at the base north of Baghdad left at least 260 people wounded

The seizure of Camp Ashraf, which was disarmed by the United States in 2003 and surrounded by U. S. forces until recently, comes after months of a tense standoff at the base north of Baghdad.

"After the failure of negotiations with the Mujahedin to enter peacefully, the Iraqi army entered Camp Ashraf with force and it now controls all of the interior and all entrances to the camp," an Iraqi military source said.

The spokesman said two battalions of 400 soldiers each, plus 200 riot police, took part in the operation, which was ordered by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office.

The offensive followed a declaration by the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) — also known as the People’s Mujahedin of Iran — that it was ready to return to Iran if the authorities there would guarantee its members would not be abused.

The MEK said in a statement that Iraqi police had launched an attack on Ashraf by firing "pepper gas," with vehicles demolishing walls while police on foot forced their way into the camp.

It also coincided with a visit to Iraq by U. S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, but the top U. S. commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, said the U. S. military had no advance warning.

Police captain Firaz al-Atbi, from the restive province of Diyala where Ashraf is located, said about 200 residents were injured when riot police called in by the army to quell unrest began beating them.

About 60 members of Iraq’s security forces were also wounded, 20 seriously, he said, adding that 50 camp residents were detained.

Shahriar Kia, a spokesman for the MEK, said four people had been shot dead and about 300 others were injured. Capt. Atbi, however, denied the four deaths.

"We are so worried that they might take the people arrested to the Iranian regime and hand them over," Mr. Kia said by telephone from Camp Ashraf.

A provincial police official said residents were throwing bricks at Iraqi security forces.

The official said Diyala provincial police chief General Abdul Hussein al-Shamari had entered the camp to try to negotiate with the MEK to end the violence. A company of U. S. soldiers had overseen the camp until handing over control three months ago to Iraqi security forces as part of the drawdown of U. S. troops, Gen. Odierno said.

The Iraqi authorities had pledged to the Americans previously that they "would deal with the MEK in a humane fashion," he said, adding that there were U. S. observers on the scene.

U. S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Washington was "closely monitoring" the seizure, and added that the Iraqi government had "stated to us that no Camp Ashraf resident will be forcibly transferred to a country where they have reason to fear persecution."

Ashraf is home to about 3,500 MEK supporters and their families.Four shot dead, opposition spokesman says

Ali Al-Tuwaijri, Agence France-Presse

July 30, 2009 0 comment

Iraq

Iraqi army storms MKO Terrorist Camp Ashraf

Iraqi army storms Iran opposition camp, scores wounded
BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) – Iraqi soldiers and riot police stormed a camp housing Iran’s main exiled opposition on Tuesday, triggering violent clashes that left at least 260 people wounded.

The seizure of Camp Ashraf, which was disarmed by the United States in 2003 and surrounded by American forces until recently, comes after months of a tense stand-off at the base north of Baghdad.

"After the failure of negotiations with the Mujahedeen to enter peacefully, the Iraqi army entered Camp Ashraf with force and it now controls all of the interior and all entrances to the camp," an Iraqi military source said.

The offensive followed a declaration by the People’s Mujahedeen, which is regarded as a terrorist outfit by Washington, that it was ready to return to Iran if the authorities there would guarantee its members would not be abused.

It also coincided with a visit to Iraq by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates but the top US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, said the US military had no advance warning.
Police captain Firaz al-Atbi from the restive province of Diyala where Ashraf is located said around 200 residents were injured when riot police called in by the army to quell unrest began beating them.

About 60 members of Iraq’s security forces were also wounded, 20 seriously, he said, adding "After the failure of negotiations with the Mujahedeen to enter peacefully, the Iraqi army entered Camp Ashraf that 50 camp residents were detained.

Shahriar Kia, a spokesman for the People’s Mujahedeen, said four people had been shot dead and around 300 others were injured. Atbi however denied the four deaths.
"We are so worried that they might take the people arrested to the Iranian regime and hand them over," Kia said by telephone from Camp Ashraf.
A provincial police official said residents were throwing bricks at Iraqi security forces.

The official said Diyala provincial police chief General Abdul Hussein al-Shamari had entered the camp to try to negotiate with the Mujahedeen to end the violence.

A company of US soldiers had overseen the camp until handing over control three months ago to Iraqi security forces as part of the drawdown of American troops, Odierno said.
"We didn’t know they were going do this," he told reporters in Baghdad.

The Iraqi authorities had pledged to the Americans previously that they "would deal with the MEK (People’s Mujahedeen) in a humane fashion," he said, adding that there were US observers on the scene.

"That’s what we’ve been watching and so far they’ve been abiding by that."

US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Washington was "closely monitoring" the seizure, and added that the Iraqi government had "stated to us that no Camp Ashraf resident will be forcibly transferred to a country where they have reason to fear persecution."

Ashraf is home to around 3,500 Mujahedeen supporters and their families. It was set up in the 1980s, when now executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was at war with Iran, as a base to operate against the Iranian government.

The People’s Mujahedeen said in a statement that Iraqi police had launched an attack on Ashraf by firing "pepper gas," with vehicles demolishing walls while police on foot forced their way into the camp.

"The Iranian Resistance holds the US forces responsible for protection of Ashraf residents and calls on the UN secretary general and all human rights organisations to intervene immediately to stop attack by Iraqi forces."

An Iraqi army spokesman in Diyala said two battalions of 400 soldiers each plus 200 riot police took part in Tuesday’s operation, which was ordered by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s office.
The Mujahedeen, which has been battling the Tehran government since the 1960s, said it was ready to return to Iran, subject to conditions.

The group’s leader Maryam Rajavi said in a statement the Iranian regime would have to pledge "not to arrest, torture, prosecute or restrict the freedom of expression" of residents of Camp Ashraf willing to return.

The Mujahedeen is branded a terrorist organisation by the United States, but the European Union removed it from its blacklist earlier this year.

It was founded in 1965 in opposition to the shah, but was sidelined by the clerical regime which took power in the 1979 Islamic revolution.
by Ali Al-Tuwaijri Ali Al-tuwaijri

July 29, 2009 0 comment

Former members of the MEK

Red Cross repatriates 260 Iran rebels;MKO from Iraq

BAGHDAD (AFP) — The International Committee of the Red Cross has helped with the voluntary repatriation of 260 members of Iran’s main armed opposition, the People’s Mujahedeen, over five years, the ICRC said on Monday.

ICRC spokeswoman Dibeh Fakhr told reporters the 260 had been repatriated between the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and April 2008, after having asked to return to Iran. Two more Mujahedeen members have since also returned home.

“The committee has helped 260 members of the Mujahedeen Khalq (People’s Mujahedeen) to return to Iran, and we actually managed to take them back to their country,”she said.

The Mujahedeen, which seeks to overthrow Iran’s Islamic regime, is branded a terrorist organisation by the United States, while the European Union only removed it from its blacklist earlier this year.

It was founded in 1965 in opposition to the shah, but was sidelined by the rival clerical regime which took power in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The group’s largest base in exile is in Ashraf, north of Baghdad. It was set up in the 1980s when Saddam Hussein was in power and at war with Iran as a base to operate against the Iranian government.

It is home to 3,500 Mujahedeen supporters and their families.

“Our role is purely humanitarian, and we have visited them to check their situation in the (Ashraf) camp,”the ICRC spokeswoman said.”During the visit, some of them expressed their desire to return to Iran.”

Since April 2008, the ICRC helped two more members of the Mujahedeen return to Iran around a week ago, said Patrick Yusef, who heads the ICRC in Iraq’s central provinces.

In March, Iraq’s National Security Advisor Muwafaq al-Rubaie said the Mujahedeen members who were based in the Ashraf camp should leave, describing them as”foreign terrorists”.

But the Mujahedeen said a forcible transfer would be illegal and that its supporters in the camp would never leave.

June 3, 2009 0 comment

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Iraq to expel Iran rebels as it takes over camp from US

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Thursday that he would expel an Iranian armed opposition group from the country after taking over their base from US forces.

"Based on taking over everything and in accordance with our constitution and our policies of opening up to our neighbours… our forces are going to take full control of the camp where the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) live," Maliki said.

Maliki was speaking to reporters on the sideline of a ceremony during which the United States handed over to Iraqi forces security control of the Green Zone, symbol of the American occupation of the country.

The PMOI "is a terrorist organisation and thus cannot operate in Iraq because it will create a political crisis in contradiction with the constitution," Maliki said.

"We will treat them based on the international laws. We will not force them to go back (to Iran) but we will give them the opportunity to either go home, or to another country," he added.

"(Staying in) Iraq will not be an alternative for them," Maliki said.

Maliki, who was speaking ahead of a visit Saturday to Tehran, told Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in March that he would take steps to ensure that Iraq was not used by "terrorists" from Al-Qaeda, or from Iranian rebel groups.

Last month the White House said it received assurances from Baghdad that the rebel group will not be expelled to a country where they may be persecuted, apparently excluding their return to Iran.

US forces confiscated the organisation’s weapons following the March 2003 US-led invasion, taking away some 300 tanks, many of which were subsequently given to the Iraqi armed forces.

Two years ago Iraq decided to restrict the movements of the estimated 3,500 PMOI members to their base at Camp Ashraf, near the Iranian border, where they have been held under a kind of US-supervised house arrest.

Described as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union, the PMOI, which was founded in 1965, has many supporters in the US Congress and British parliament.

Group members fought alongside Iraqi forces in the 1980-1988 war between Iraq and Iran and then settled in Iraq.

January 3, 2009 0 comment

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Iraq vows to expel Iranian opposition group

BAGHDAD (AFP)- Iraq vowed on Sunday to oust members of the main armed Iranian opposition group from its soil, just days before Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is due on a trip to Tehran.

The announcement was made during a visit by a government delegation to the camp in Iraq where about 3,500 members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) are based.

"The Iraqi government is responsible for their security and it continues to implement its plans to shut down the camp and to either deport its population to their country or to a third country," it said in a statement after the visit led by Iraqi national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie.

"Remaining in Iraq is not an option for them," the statement added.

After being thrown out- of Iran in the 1980s, members of the PMOI sought refuge abroad, notably in Iraq where they established Camp Ashraf in the province of Diyala.

The group, which is considered a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States, has been holding demonstrations outside UN offices in Geneva protesting against their expulsion from Iraq.

Militants at Camp Ashraf last month sent an open letter to US President George W. Bush about their situation.

Maliki is due to visit neighbouring Iran and Turkey from December 24, his fourth visit to the Islamic republic since taking office in 2006.

In March, Maliki told visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he would take steps to ensure that Iraqi territory was not used by "terrorists" from Al-Qaeda, or from Iranian rebel groups.

The PMOI was founded in 1965 with the aim of replacing first the shah and then the clerical regime in Iran, and has in the past operated an army inside Iran.

It was financed by Saddam Hussein to carry out attacks against the regime in Tehran but was disarmed by the US military after the 2003 invasion.

December 22, 2008 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq 's Function

Iranian rebel group supports France’s Royal

BAGHDAD (AFP) – French presidential candidate Segolene Royal received a campaign endorsement from an unexpected quarter on Saturday when an Iraq-based Iranian rebel movement held a rally to support her.

The People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI), which is listed by the European Union and United States as a terrorist group, claimed that around 4,000 Iranian exiles and Iraqi supporters had gathered in the Iraqi town of Ashraf, northeast of Baghdad.

The guerrilla organisation has a long-standing enmity for the outgoing French President Jacques Chirac and his favoured successor, the Socialist Royal’s right-wing opponent Nicholas Sarkozy.

Photographs released by the group appeared to show a crowd of thousands in a hangar-like hall, and a panel of women behind a banner reading "Women of Iraq, Iran and France: with Segolene, for peace, against fundamentalism."

The women sat in front of three flags — those of Iran, France and Iraq.

PMOI spokesman Shahria Kia said the rally was attended by his group and by Iranian and Iraqi opposition groups who feel Royal would be a better ally than previous French presidents in their battle with the Tehran regime.

A statement from the groups, released to AFP, read: "We ask all of our friends, particularly all the French Muslims, to vote for Ms Royal."

"We are certain that with this choice France will retrieve its values, and will stand beside the oppressed people of Iraq and Iran against fundamentalism and terrorism exported by Iran," it added.

The PMOI, also known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq Organisation (MKO), was founded in 1965 by leftist students at Tehran university, and fled Iran after clashing with the Islamist government set up in the 1979 revolution.

It was based in exile in France until 1986, when the then prime minister, Chirac, expelled them.

Saddam Hussein’s Iraq became the group’s new home, and they developed a guerrilla army to launch cross-border attacks into Iran.

The group’s bases were bombed by the US military during the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, but after the fall of Saddam a ceasefire was signed with the Americans, who keep the activists under guard in Ashraf.

Nevertheless, the US State Department continues to list the PMOI as a terrorist organisation, as does the European Union despite a ruling last year by the European Court of Justice that this was unfair.

Female activist Ategheh Khorsand, who addressed the gathering on behalf of the PMOI, said: "French policy, during past 20 years, towards Iran and Iraq is not something for France to be proud of.

"The only concern of this policy has been to attract consent of the religious dictatorship in Iran for financial and trade concession by suppressing the members of the Iranian resistance in France," she added.

Socialist Party flag-bearer Royal will face Sarkozy in the final round of France’s presidential election, which will choose a successor to the PMOI’s original nemesis Chirac.

In June 2003, when Sarkozy was French interior minister, French police raided several alleged PMOI safe houses in France and arrested 160 suspects. Sarkozy warned that the group was trying to make France its rear base.

By Dave Clark, AFP, April 29, 2007

April 30, 2007 0 comment

European Union

EU Provides Reasons for Designating the MKO

The European Union will send letters to groups and individuals on its terror register to explain why they are listed, EU diplomats said Friday.

The decision, to be adopted Monday by EU foreign ministers, was made in the wake of a ruling last year by Europe’s second-highest court annulling a freeze on the assets of the main Iranian opposition group in exile.

The Court of First Instance ruled that the EU had not respected the right to a fair hearing of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (OMPI), when it ordered the asset freeze in May 2002.

One diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the EU’s reasoning will be posted in its official journal for the groups and individuals for whom it has no address.

Those listed have 30 days "to present their arguments" against the decision.

The terror register lists more than 50 organisations and individuals, including the armed Basque separatist group ETA, Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers and the Islamist group Hamas.

It is supposed to be revised every six months but this has not happened because of uncertainty caused by the court ruling.

An asset freeze is imposed on those who figure on the list.

The EU has already written to OMPI, recalling "the organisation’s past, notably the attacks that it has been responsible for", the diplomat said.

Evidences Dismissing MKO Mojahedin Khalq Organisation,

Rajavi cult headed by Massoud Rajavi and

Maryam Rjavi) Disclaim of Terrorism

The European Parliament Held an Assembly,

Considering the MKO’s Present

Situation (February 28, 2007)

UK Secretary of State: Mojahedin

Assets still frozen in EU and

UK (18 January 2007)

US State Department Report 1997 on

Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (Rajavi Cult

Headed by Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Rajavi)

Anne Singleton interview with BBC Radio

about Rajavi cult headed by Massoud

Rajavi and Maryam Rajavi

AFP, April 20, 2007

April 23, 2007 0 comment

Iran

Iran offered to cut off Hezbollah in overture to US in 2003: BBC

Iran offered to cut off aid and support for the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas, and promised full transparency on its nuclear program in a secret letter to the United States soon after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British media reported.

According to the BBC, the letter, which it obtained, was unsigned, but the US State Department understood that it came with the approval of the highest Iranian authorities.

The Islamic republic also offered to use its influence to support stabilisation in Iraq, and in return asked for a halt in hostile American behaviour, an abolition of all sanctions, and the pursuit and repatriation of members of the Mujahedeen Khalq (People’s Mujahedeen MKO).

The MKO is an exiled Iranian opposition group which fought alongside former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s army in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, and is currently based in Iraq.

Initially, the State Department was positive on the offer, according to Lawrence Wilkerson, former US secretary of state Colin Powell’s chief of staff, who spoke to the BBC.

"As soon as it got to the White House, and as soon as it got to the Vice-President’s ( Dick Cheney) office, the old mantra of ‘we don’t talk to evil’ … reasserted itself," Wilkerson told the broadcaster.

"To our embarrassment at State … the cable that I saw go back to the Swiss actually upbraided the Swiss for being so bold and audacious as to present such a proposal to us on behalf of the Iranians."

According to Wilkerson, the State Department was also offered a deal by the Iranians after it led the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 which involved Iran giving up senior Al-Qaeda terror network figures in return for help pursuing the MKO.Powell and Wilkerson were unsure how high in the Iranian government the approach came from, however, and did not pursue the offer, the BBC said.

Iran offered to cut off Hezbollah in overture to US in 2003: BBC

LONDON (AFP) – January 18, 2007

According to the BBC, the letter, which it obtained, was unsigned, but the US State Department understood that it came with the approval of the highest Iranian authorities.

The MKO is an exiled Iranian opposition group which fought alongside former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s army in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, and is currently based in Iraq.

Initially, the State Department was positive on the offer, according to Lawrence Wilkerson, former US secretary of state Colin Powell’s chief of staff, who spoke to the BBC.

LONDON (AFP) – January 18, 2007

January 22, 2007 0 comment

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

Iraq PM hints at expelling Iran opposition group ,

BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki says he is looking for ways to end the presence in his country of the Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran.

"The presence in the country of this organization violates the constitution," he told a press conference on Wednesday, accusing the organization of interfering in Iran’s internal affairs.

"This organization has been behaving as though it is an Iraqi organization," he added, emphasizing that it is labeled as a terrorist organization in the United States and the European Union.

Maliki said the cabinet decided at a meeting Wednesday to restrict the movements of PMOI members to their base at Camp Ashraf, near the Iranian border, and to prevent them from contacting government officials.

The government will also form a committee to decide whether to allow them to remain in Iraq or find a country to exile them to.

Iran has publicly complained about the continuing presence of the PMOI across its border.

Under the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, the PMOI was supplied with weapons and tanks and periodically carried out armed incursions against Iran as well as helped Iraqi forces put down rebellious Shiites in 1991.

US forces confiscated the organization’s weapons following the March 2003 US-led invasion, taking away some 300 tanks, many of which were subsequently given to the Iraqi armed forces.

The estimated 3,000 PMOI members are now under a kind of US-supervised house arrest at Camp Ashraf, which is mainly for their protection against hostile population on both sides of the border.

The group’s activities are supported by its political wing, the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI) which has offices in France and Germany and carries out lobbying efforts against the Iranian government.

While the PMOI is characterized as a terrorist group by the United States and EU, it has many supporters in the US Congress and British parliament.

AFP – Wed Jul 19

July 22, 2006 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Iranian opposition challenges to drop terror label

Iranian opposition challenges Bush to keep his word,drop terror label

Hundreds of Iranian exiles linked to an opposition group Washington considers terrorist gathered Thursday to demand US President George W. Bush support them in their efforts to unseat the Islamic regime in Tehran.

The National Convention for a Democratic Secular Republic in Iran gathered Iranian-Americans to push for official US support for their efforts.

Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi, addressing the convention in a video link from France, called on the United States and the European Union to end its appeasement of the Tehran regime and recognize her National Council of Resistance of Iran as an Iranian government-in-exile.

"Just as the time has come to abandon the appeasement of tyrants, so the time has come to remove the ominous legacy of that policy, namely the terror label against the Iranian resistance," Rajavi said, according to a printed translation of her remarks in Farsi.

Rajavi, president of the opposition group, cannot enter the United States because the council and its armed wing, the People’s Mujahedeen, are considered terrorist organizations by the US government and the European Union.

Its detractors call the organization a Marxist cult, but the group insists it is committed to democracy and is merely fighting oppression under the Islamic regime in Tehran.

The group has considerable support among US lawmakers, think-tank experts and lobbyists, who claim the terrorism designation was meant to appease Tehran and want Bush to order it lifted.

Bush has denounced the regime in Tehran, saying it supports terrorism and is trying to develop a nuclear bomb, and has urged Iranians to work against the ruling clergy. In February, during his State of the Union address to Congress, Bush said: "To the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you."

Tancredo and other lawmakers however want the United States to go further. They have introduced legislation to provide financial and political assistance to Iranian opposition groups that oppose terrorism and support democracy.

The People’s Mujahedeen, whose headquarters are in Auvers-sur-Oise outside Paris, was implicated in attacks on US military officers in Iran in the 1970s, and supported the 1979 Islamic revolution and the subsequent takeover of the US embassy by Iranian militants.

But the movement was suppressed in the years that followed, and the group set up base in Iraq in 1986 and carried out regular cross-border raids into Iran, with which Iraq fought a bloody war between 1980 and 1988.

The group also participated in Saddam Hussein’s crackdown on an uprising by Shiites and Kurds in 1991.

Some 3,800 of the group’s fighters were disarmed and interned by US forces in 2003 at a camp in Iraq. They have been given protected status under the Geneva Conventions, and US officials have interviewed them to determine if they had been involved in terrorist incidents.

June 28, 2005 0 comment

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