Washington Post

Iraq orders MKO to vacate Camp Ashraf

Iranian dissidents protest the Iraqi government’s orders that they vacate Camp Ashraf, even as

Iraqi policemen stood ready at Camp Ashraf in case violence erupted. The government says it intends to take the exiles, members of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, to camps in the south. (Hadi Mizban/associated Press)

Iraqi policemen, at right, stood ready in case violence erupted. The government says it intends to take the exiles, members of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, to camps in the south. (Ernesto Londoño/the Washington Post)

CAMP ASHRAF, IRAQ — With loudspeakers mounted on pickup trucks and riot police offering backup, Iraqi troops on Tuesday ordered a group of Iranian dissidents here to vacate their sanctuary, which has become an irritant in Iraq’s relationship with Iran.

"Today is the day we start moving things out," Brig. Gen. Basel Hamad told reporters during a rare trip to the camp, 40 miles north of Baghdad. "We will not allow any foreigners to establish their own laws on Iraqi soil."

Members of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, who reside in the 10-square-mile compound, have warned that they will not be taken out alive. Residents and Western officials fear the increasingly tense stalemate at Camp Ashraf could end in bloodshed.

The standoff has raised questions about the extent to which the United States, which once protected the MEK, is indebted to armed groups with which it brokered deals during the course of the war. The deadlock also has shed light on the degree to which an increasingly sovereign Iraq is haunted by its past, swayed by erstwhile nemesis Iran and willing to use force.

The Iraqi government invited reporters to the camp Tuesday. The day began ominously, with three car bombs detonating at the site where the journalists later gathered. At least four people were killed in the blasts, which occurred near the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad.

At midday, Iraqi policemen donned riot gear at a staging area and spoke about what might happen at Camp Ashraf in the days ahead.

"Our instructions are that we are not to beat anyone," said Aquil Ahmed, the police commissioner, adding that troops were armed only with rubber batons and electric shock wands. "If the demonstrations reach another stage, we will need to use weapons."
Packing dozens of Iraqi and Western journalists into the backs of pickup trucks, Iraqi troops drove down the tree-lined streets of the camp dropping leaflets and blaring messages in Farsi on loudspeakers. They asked MEK members to defect and invited them to hop into four small white-and-blue buses. None obliged.

A point of contention
The MEK camp includes dozens of people with dual nationalities or with residency permits for the United States, Canada and European countries.

Their continued presence in Iraq has been a sore spot in Baghdad’s relations with Tehran, which became close after the March 2003 U.S. invasion. The Shiite-led government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says the group must be disbanded and expelled, but no country seems willing to give the MEK sanctuary.

The group began as a student opposition movement in Tehran in the 1960s that sought to overthrow Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah. It resorted to violence during the 1970s, with members accused of bombing government facilities and killing U.S. citizens in Iran.

The MEK moved its headquarters to Iraq in the mid-1980s and fought alongside Saddam Hussein’s forces during the second half of the war between the neighboring countries. U.S. and European officials say the group helped the Iraqi government crush uprisings by Shiites and Kurds.

Shortly after the U.S.-led invasion, the American military brokered the group’s disarmament and offered it protection. The MEK says it gave U.S. officials valuable information about Iran’s nuclear program.

The roughly 3,200 residents of the camp have since lived in a Marxist-like commune, and they say they aspire to overthrow the Iranian regime.

A group with few friends
In recent months, as the Iraqi government has become increasingly assertive, the residents’ fate has become precarious. In July, Iraqi troops barged into the camp to set up a police station. Group members resisted, and Iraqi officers opened fire and ran over residents with American-donated armored Humvees, killing 11 people and wounding scores.

While it seeks a permanent home for the Iranians, the Iraqi government says it intends to take them to other camps in southern Iraq. But officials have not disclosed details.

As others debate the MEK’s fate, the group appears more isolated than ever. It recently broke off communications with the International Committee of the Red Cross. The European Commission has begun distributing a white paper to lawmakers, many of whom support the MEK, in an effort to taper their support for the group.

"We’re trying to educate them," said a senior Western diplomat involved in the efforts, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic rules. "We collectively tend to forget what bad guys the MEK are."

American officials say they can do little under the terms of a bilateral agreement other than urge the Iraqis to act humanely.
"We not only have no obligation to protect them, we cannot intervene," said Philip Frayne, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy.

MEK members say the United States owes them more.

"I am afraid of these soldiers," said Maryam Zoljalali, 28, who moved to the camp eight years ago from Sweden. "I don’t know what they will do in the future."
After standing by uncomfortably for a few minutes as camp residents waved placards and photos around journalists, Iraqi troops ordered the reporters back to their vehicles.
Inside one bus, an Iraqi soldier scoffed as he looked out the window.

"They had satellite dishes before anyone in Iraq," he said, a reference to the preferential treatment accorded to the MEK under Hussein. "We used to come here as laborers when they were the commanders."

Asked whether the turned tables were an opportunity for revenge, another soldier laughed.

"I have nothing to do with this," he said. "But their state wants them back."

Special correspondent Aziz Alwan contributed to this report.
By Ernesto Londoño – Washington Post Foreign Service

December 16, 2009 0 comment

Iraq

Iraqi Police Storm Ashraf – Fighting Continues at Camp for Iran Exiles

BAGHDAD, July 29 — Violent clashes continued for a second day Wednesday between Iraqi troops and members of an Iranian opposition group whose camp the Iraqis stormed Tuesday, presenting the first major dilemma for the U.S. government since Iraq proclaimed its sovereignty a month ago. Iraqi Police Storm Ashraf_Fighting Continues at Camp for Iran Exiles

At least eight Iranians have been killed and 400 wounded since Tuesday, when hundreds of Iraqi police and soldiers in riot gear plowed into Camp Ashraf, northeast of Baghdad, using Humvees donated by the U.S. military, according to group leaders and Abdul Nasir al-Mahdawi, the governor of Diyala province…

The raid, ordered by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, coincided with an unannounced visit by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who left Iraq on Wednesday.

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton described the raid as a legitimate act by a sovereign nation. "Although the U.S. government remains engaged and concerned about this issue, it is a matter for the government of Iraq to resolve in accordance with its laws," she said.

Clinton said Iraq had given assurances that camp residents would be treated humanely and would not be relocated anywhere they would have a well-founded fear of persecution. She urged the Iraqis to "show restraint."

U.S. officials are deeply concerned about the reports of violence and have been monitoring the situation using camera-equipped unmanned aircraft, said an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We’re asking the Iraqis questions," the official said. "Sometimes they answer, sometimes they don’t."

A contingent of U.S. soldiers based outside Ashraf have been watching but have declined to intervene, residents said.

The raid and its aftermath represent a conundrum for U.S. officials. Some say they feel obligated to the MEK because its members have provided information about Iran’s nuclear program and because American officials vowed to protect them after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But condemning this week’s events could be seen as an affront to Maliki’s government just as U.S. officials are talking up Iraq’s sovereignty, proclaimed June 30 when American troops withdrew from cities.
The stated goal of the Ashraf operation was to set up an Iraqi police station inside the camp, a move Iraq has described as the first step toward evicting the more than 3,000 residents.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh defended the raid Wednesday, telling the Associated Press that the government "intends to assert its sovereignty on all sites and facilities that were controlled by foreign troops, and Camp Ashraf is no exception."
"The Iraqi government doesn’t intend to clash with members of this camp," he said, "but it will defend the law decisively."

Tehran officials have long pressured the Baghdad government to expel the MEK, which seeks to overthrow Iran’s Islamic regime. But Iraq has held off from raiding the camp because of U.S. opposition to a violent takeover.
An Iraqi police commander who participated in the raid said the Iranians’ fierce resistance had startled the Iraqi security forces. When the Iraqis gathered outside the gate, throngs of MEK members, led by women, formed a human shield, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "They put the women in front to prevent us from entering. They hit us with rocks and knives."

The official said 45 troops were injured. Residents at the camp said they did not provoke the forces.
After nearly four hours, the official said, the Iraqis set up a police station and checkpoints inside the camp and raised an Iraqi flag.

The State Department classifies the MEK as a terrorist organization, but Washington has interacted with the group since it agreed to disarm in 2003 in return for U.S. military protection. The Baghdad government assumed nominal control of the perimeter of the camp Jan. 1, when a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement took effect.
Special corresponden Aziz Alwan contributed to this report.
By Ernesto Londoño

July 30, 2009 0 comment

Iraq

Iraq to Relocate Iran Opposition Group

U.S. Guarded Embattled Movement’s Camp

Iraq’s national security adviser said Friday that the government intends to move an Iranian opposition group from its sanctuary near the Iranian border to a location where leaders and”brainwashed cult members”will be separated and the latter”detoxified.”

Mowaffak al-Rubaie’s remarks about the future of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, were his most detailed to date on how his government intends to deal with an issue that has been an irritant in relations between Iraq’s government, which has built close ties with Iran, and the U.S. government. The group received support from Saddam Hussein’s government and has been designated a terrorist organization by the State Department, but U.S. officials credit the MEK with providing information about Iran’s nuclear program.

The Iraqi government’s resolution of the conundrum is likely to shed light on how an increasingly sovereign Iraq will handle such vexing problems, and is likely to speak volumes about the extent to which Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is influenced by Iran.

Members of the group”should understand that their days in Iraq are numbered,”Rubaie told Western journalists at a briefing in the Green Zone.”We are literally counting them.”

Iraqi officials, including Maliki, have in recent months publicly lambasted the group, generally during or after official visits to Iran.

The U.S. military has protected the group’s camp in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. It handed over nominal control of the outer perimeter to Iraqi security forces in February but said it is keeping a contingent there to ensure that group members are treated humanely.

At one point in his remarks, Rubaie said Iraq would not forcibly deport MEK members because”we are a civilized country.”But later, he said the Iraqi government would have a”thick skin”when it came to any negative press or international outcry generated by the eventual repatriation of members.

“The party is over for them. The party is over for coalition protection for them,”he said, referring to the U.S. military.

A spokesman for the group, Mohammad Mohaddessin, said in a statement that residents of Camp Ashraf, which is 40 miles north of Baghdad,”will never leave their home”and warned that Rubaie’s plan is”setting the stage for a human catastrophe.”

Rubaie did not indicate when or how the Iraqi government will expel the people at Ashraf. He said the government is considering facilities in western and southern Iraq to house the camp’s 3,418 residents while it studies its options.

Rubaie said the government hopes to wean”brainwashed cult members”from the sway of the 25 or so leaders at Ashraf before they are repatriated.

Rubaie, citing numbers he obtained from the U.S. military, said Camp Ashraf’s population includes 11 Canadians, five Americans, four Swedes, three Dutch and three Britons. Hundreds more have legal residency permits issued by France, Germany and other Western countries, he said. But ascertaining the identity and nationality of everyone there has and will probably continue to be challenging, he said, because the group’s leaders”are obstructing us.”

Rubaie said he recently met with ambassadors from several countries whose citizens or permanent residents are at Ashraf to urge them to take the group members back following a”meticulous vetting process.”If they do not, Rubaie warned,”we will provide them with Iranian passports,”and”they will wind up on a European street.”

The group includes 900 young women but no children because members are barred from having sex, he said.

Many members are the children of Iranian exiles recruited during the 1980s and ’90s. Hussein used the heavily armed and well-trained group during his decade-long war with Iran in the ’80s, and it also reportedly played a role in Hussein’s bloody suppression of Shiite and Kurdish uprisings after the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

MEK leaders say the prospect of being forcibly repatriated to Iran would expose them to torture and execution.

Rubaie said the Iraqi government has arrest warrants for three group members and that the United States has warrants for two others. He said that Iranian officials plan to prosecute more than 50 Ashraf residents and that they recently proposed that their prosecutions be carried out in Iraq.

By Ernesto Londoño – Washington Post Foreign Service

March 30, 2009 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Iraq Accuses Iranian Exiles of Plotting Attack

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

January 22, 2009 0 comment

Iraq

Iraq Threatens to Expel Iranian Rebels

Iraq Threatens to Expel Iranian Rebels; Exile Group Has Protected Status Under Soon-to-Expire U.N. Mandate

Iraqi officials say they intend to expel members of an Iranian exile group living in a camp north of Baghdad that is protected by the U.S. military. The expulsion, which the Shiite-led government has long sought, is expected to become feasible once the U.N. mandate that regulates the presence of U.S. troops — and which gave the Iranian opposition group protected status — expires at the end of the year.

Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie on Saturday traveled to the camp with several other government officials to deliver the message to members of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group that was closely aligned with deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein but has been under U.S. military protection since shortly after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The government informed the group that it would soon assume responsibility for security at Camp Ashraf and that residents would be repatriated unless they find a third country willing to take them. The U.S. military currently protects Camp Ashraf, which is 40 miles north of Baghdad.

“Staying in Iraq is not an option for them,”the government said in a statement issued Sunday. The Iranian government has long called for the group’s expulsion.

The statement did not set a deadline for removing the MEK. Iraqi officials have pledged to treat the group’s members humanely but have made their disdain for the MEK clear. The delegation that visited the camp included officials of the Defense and Interior ministries as well as Iraqi intelligence officials.

The statement also said the group is barred from participating in political activities and ordered it to cease media campaigns.

The Shiite-led Iraqi government, which has close ties to Iran, has for years threatened to shut down Camp Ashraf because it regards the MEK, also known as the People’s Mujaheddin Organization of Iran, as a terrorist organization.

The European Union and the U.S. State Department have also labeled the group a terrorist organization.

The MEK, which has about 3,500 members in Iraq, has strongly resisted the Iraqi government’s expulsion efforts, saying members could be executed if they are forced to return to Iran. The group has aggressively lobbied U.S. and European lawmakers and has relentlessly sought sympathetic coverage in the Western news media.

The MEK was founded in the 1960s as an opponent of the late shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It was accused of carrying out several attacks in Iran, including some targeting U.S. officials.

The MEK moved its headquarters to Iraq during the 1980s, when Iraq and Iran were at war. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein embraced the group, providing them weapons and financial support.

Kurds and Shiites have long reviled the MEK because they say the group helped suppress the failed Kurdish and Shiite uprisings that followed the Persian Gulf War.

Shortly after the 2003 invasion, the U.S. military persuaded the MEK to disarm and offered to protect the group. The arrangement was awkward because it tasked the U.S. military with sheltering a group that remains on the State Department’s terrorism list.

The group’s charismatic leader, Maryam Rajavi, is based in Paris, but France and many other countries have been reluctant to resettle the group’s members.

Also Sunday, Iraq’s Interior Ministry issued a statement calling the recent detention of ministry officials by a special unit that reports directly to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki”a brazen act of political retribution.”

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani had dismissed reports that the roughly two dozen detained officials were plotting to reconstitute Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, possibly to stage a coup. The statement makes clear Bolani was deeply unsettled by the detentions. Bolani, an independent, secular Shiite, has not previously criticized the Maliki government in such stark terms. With provincial elections a few weeks away, competition among Shiite parties has intensified. Bolani recently created his own party, and the statement appears to indicate he believes that the prime minister ordered the raid to undermine him.

Under Bolani’s stewardship, the ministry has fired or criminally charged tens of thousands of employees accused of corruption. The raid occurred last week while Bolani was out of the country. He said any concerns about misdeeds by ministry officials should be brought to his attention and not handled”Saddam-like under cover of the night under dubious threats of an imminent coup.”

“The Minister was outraged that anyone would interfere in the administration of the Ministry he is sworn to lead,”the statement said.”He alone is responsible for this Ministry and he is accountable only to the Iraqi people.”

The statement, signed by Rafae Munahe, an adviser to Bolani, was e-mailed to reporters late Sunday by a representative of Brown Lloyd James, a public relations firm.

Special correspondent Qais Mizher contributed to this report.

Washington Post, Ernesto Londono,

December 23, 2008 0 comment

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Iraq Intensifies Efforts to Expel Iranian Group

For three years, thousands of members of a militant group dedicated to overthrowing Iran’s theocracy have lived in a sprawling compound north of Baghdad under the protection of the U.S. military.

American soldiers chauffeur top leaders of the group, known as the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, to and from their compound, where they have hosted dozens of visitors in an energetic campaign to persuade the State Department to stop designating the group as a terrorist organization.

Now the Iraqi government is intensifying its efforts to evict the 3,800 or so members of the group who live in Iraq, although U.S. officials say they are in no hurry to change their policy toward the MEK, which has been a prime source of information about Iran’s nuclear program.

The Iraqi government announced this week that roughly 100 members would face prosecution for human rights violations, a move MEK officials contend comes at the request of the Iranian government.

"We have documents, witnesses," Jaafar al-Moussawi, a top Iraqi prosecutor, said Monday, alleging that the MEK aided President Saddam Hussein’s campaign to crush Shiite and Kurdish opposition movements at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Moussawi said the criminal complaint would implicate MEK members in "killing, torture, [wrongful] imprisonment and displacement."

The group denied involvement in Hussein’s reprisals.

"These allegations are preposterous and lies made by the Iranian mullahs and repeated by their agents," it said in a statement issued this week.

The case highlights the occasional discord between the U.S. and Iraqi governments on matters related to Iran. While the U.S. government has accused Iran of supplying Iraqi Shiite militias with sophisticated weapons that it says have been used to kill American troops, Iraq’s Shiite-led government has expanded commercial and diplomatic ties with its majority-Shiite neighbor.

"This organization has always destabilized the security situation" in Iraq, said Mariam Rayis, a top foreign affairs adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, adding that the MEK’s continued presence "could lead to deteriorating the relationship with neighboring countries."

MEK leaders dispute the prosecutor’s allegations. They contend that Iran has infiltrated Iraq’s political leadership while also supporting militant groups in an effort to keep the United States in a quagmire in Iraq. They also say the Iranian government wants to forestall a U.S. attack on Iran.

"The Iranian regime wants very much to prevent the winds of change," Behzad Saffari, a spokesman for the group, said in a recent interview at a Baghdad hotel. "Instead of fighting the Americans in Iran, [the Iranian government] is fighting them in Iraq. If we have to leave Iraq, it means the Americans are defeated. It means Iran has prevailed."

Maliki told officials from neighboring countries during a meeting in Baghdad on Saturday that Iraq should not become a battleground where other nations attempt to settle their disputes.

The Iranian Embassy in Baghdad did not reply to questions about the MEK.

The MEK, also known as the People’s Mujaheddin of Iran, was founded by students at Tehran University in 1965 as an opposition movement to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the country’s U.S.-backed dictator. The group clashed with that government and later with the Islamic Republic established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979.

In 1986, the MEK moved its headquarters to Iraq, where Hussein welcomed the organization. MEK fighters have been widely accused of backing Hussein’s suppression of the Shiite and Kurdish uprisings, but MEK officials say Kurdish leaders have absolved them of playing a role in the crackdown on Kurds.

In 1997, during a period of warmer relations between Washington and Tehran under the Clinton administration, the State Department added the MEK to its list of foreign terrorist organizations.

The group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, lives in Paris. She has a cultlike following among members, some of whom set themselves on fire to protest her brief arrest in 2003 after French officials raided the group’s offices. Rajavi has led efforts to have the group’s terror label removed in the United States and Europe. In December, a European court overturned an E.U. order freezing the group’s assets. The European Union has not removed the group from its terrorist list.

The MEK says it has several thousand members in Iran, but the extent of its support base is unclear. Most exiled members live in the camp at Ashraf, north of Baghdad.

After Hussein was toppled, the MEK agreed to turn over its weapons to U.S. military officials. In 2004, the U.S. military granted its members the status of "protected persons" under the Geneva Conventions and has since provided security for the camp.

Shortly after the camp was set up, FBI and State Department officials screened residents and found no evidence that would lead them to charge anyone with a crime.

A Washington Post special correspondent toured Camp Ashraf in January. It is a largely self-sufficient compound, and the majority of members haven’t left in years. It has shops, a swimming pool, an ice cream store, a bakery and a soda factory that makes a cola- and orange-flavored drink locals call Ashraf Cola.

Last summer, Maliki gave the group six months to leave Iraq. Although the deadline has elapsed, Iraqi officials say they intend to expel the group after getting parliamentary approval.

MEK officers argue that their expulsion would be a violation of international law and have obtained a legal opinion to that effect from the U.N. refugee agency. They say they should be treated as refugees, not terrorists.

Lou Fintor, the spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said there has been no change in the government’s position toward the MEK. A U.S. military spokesman in Iraq did not respond to questions about the MEK.

A senior U.S. military official who spoke on condition of anonymity said protecting the MEK was "not a big drain on our resources," adding, "This is a political problem between Iraq, Iran and the MEK."

If the group is expelled, it is unclear where Ashraf residents would go or what other country might take them. MEK leaders refuse to speak about such a scenario, reiterating that their expulsion would be illegal.

The leaders say they are a main source of intelligence on Iran and question why the United States keeps the group on its terrorist list.

"All the important things that are talked about are things revealed by us," said Mohammad Mohaddessin chairman of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the MEK’s political arm, referring to information about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and, more recently, the roadside bombs the United States says Iran has made available to insurgents in Iraq.

Moussawi, the Iraqi prosecutor, said the human rights case is not politically motivated. The issue of expulsion, which is not directly related to the pending criminal charges, is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament in coming weeks.

Some lawmakers have criticized Maliki for making the issue a priority at a time when Iraq is besieged by more serious problems.

"If you take it from a humanitarian side, I don’t think they should leave until the situation can be resolved," Saleh al-Mutlak, a Sunni lawmaker, said in an interview. "It is surprising that the government of Iraq is giving such an order. This will only show that the Maliki government will obey Iran’s orders."

Staff writer Ann Scott Tyson in Washington contributed to this report.

By Ernesto Londoo and Saad al-Izzi

Washington Post Staff Writers

March 14, 2007

March 15, 2007 0 comment

Ali Reza Jafarzade

Dissidents Seeking Help

Laura Rozen, a senior correspondent, in part of her Washington Post article Iran on the Potomac, described several Iranian dissidents who are pressing Washington, seeking help in fostering regime change back home. The only problem, as she says, is that the exiles can’t agree on a strategy. Among all the opposition, there can be found no equivalent to the Iraqi National Congress, and the exiles have yet to coalesce around a platform or leader.

Mojahedin Khalq Organization, MKO, is one of the exile groups that has advocates in Congress in spite of being blacklisted as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Talking of Alireza Jafarzadeh, Washington spokesman for the MKO, Rozen describes Jafarzadeh as ‘The militant voice’:

"Alireza Jafarzadeh , 49, is the longtime Washington spokesman for the National Council of the Resistance of Iran, the political wing of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, an anti-regime militant group supported for years by Saddam Hussein. MEK has been on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations since 1997. In 2002, Jafarzadeh and the group announced details of Iran’s previously unknown nuclear program. With NCRI’s Washington office shut down since 2003, Jafarzadeh has reinvented himself as an expert commentator on Iran’s nuclear program. The MEK is reviled by Iran but it has support from the Iran Policy Committee, a group of conservative retired U.S. military officers and Reagan-era officials, who say Washington should work with the MEK to overthrow the Tehran regime."

Washington Post, June 25, 2006

June 28, 2006 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Charity Event May Have Terrorist Link

Pentagon Adviser Who Spoke at Function Thought Money Was for Quake Victims

Pentagon adviser Richard N. Perle, a strong advocate of war against Iraq, spoke last weekend at a charity event that U.S. officials say may have had ties to an alleged terrorist group seeking to topple the Iranian government and backed by SaddamHussein.

The event, attended by more than 3,000 people Saturday at the Washington Convention Center, generated enough concerns within the administration that officials debated whether they had the legal authority to block the event, U.S. officials said yesterday. FBI agents attended it and, as part of a continuing investigation, the Treasury Department on Monday froze the assets of the event’s prime organizer, the Iranian-American Community of Northern Virginia.

Perle, in an interview, said he was unaware of any involvement by the terrorist group, known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), and believed he was assisting the victims of the Bam earthquake when he delivered the paid speech.

"All of the proceeds will go to the Red Cross," Perle said. Informed that the Red Cross had announced before the event it would refuse any monies because of the event’s "political nature," Perle said: "I was unaware of that." Perle declined to say how much he received.

The Web site for the $35-a-person event, billed as "a night of solidarity with Iran," flashed between references to support for "the Iran earthquake victims" and "a referendum for regime change in Iran." One administration official said that the FBI determined that at least three of the sponsoring organizations were associated with the MEK, while a senior Treasury official said "there were general indications the MEK may have an interest in the event," but it could not yet prove it.

The day before the function, Treasury sent a letter to the Convention Center warning that the "MEK may have an interest in this event or may attempt to use the event to raise funds." But the Treasury official said officials moved cautiously because in general they did not want to chill possible charitable acts. "This is what makes terrorist financing so complex," he said. "You often have a blending of purposes and interests."

No one answered the phone at the Iranian-American Community of Northern Virginia, and messages seeking comment were not returned.

The MEK, though listed on the State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations since 1997, in the past year has been the subject of an administration tug of war over its status. The group maintained for the past decade thousands of fighters armed with tanks, armored vehicles and artillery in three camps northeast of Baghdad along the Iraq-Iran border. U.S. analysts concluded its primary support came from Hussein’s government.Nevertheless, some Pentagon officials considered the MEK as a possible vanguard against the Iranian government, which they viewed as a threat in the region. But in May President Bush ordered the group surrounded and disarmed. Even then, reports persisted of an easy-going relationship between the military and the MEK forces, leading the White House to clarify late last year that the MEK is "part of the global war on terrorism" and its members "are being screened for possible involvement

in war crimes, terrorism and other criminal activities."

Jacki Flowers, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross, said the relief agency had been contacted by the sponsors about receiving funds raised at the event several weeks before it took place. But the Red Cross decided to reject the proceeds once it became aware that the event was "political in nature," specifically the promotion of regime change. She said accepting the funds would "compromise our fundamental principles of neutrality and impartiality."

Perle, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, said he was contacted by the Premiere Speakers Bureau in mid-January about giving the keynote speech. He asked for more information about the sponsoring organizations and received a letter saying aid would be coordinated though the Red Cross and describing the event as "solidarity with earthquake victims in Iran and an evening for Iranian Resistance."

The Iranian Resistance is often an alias for the MEK. In August, the State Department shut down the U.S. offices of the political arm of the MEK, known as National Council of Resistance of Iran.

He said the hall was full of families and children and "it did not have an aura of an event with terrorist sponsorship."

Raymond Tanter, a University of Michigan professor who introduced Perle, has long maintained that the MEK does not belong on the list of foreign terrorist organizations. He said MEK was never mentioned in speeches, "but I did hear references to Camp Ashraf," which is where U.S. troops are holding MEK fighters.