Iraq changes name of MKO’s Camp Ashraf

Iraqi authorities changed the name of a training base of the anti-Iran terrorist group, Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), after seizing full control of the camp.

"Camp Ashraf’s name has been changed to Camp of New Iraq, after the Iraqi security forces assumed full security of the camp,"" Political Adviser of the head of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) Mohsen al-Hakim told FNA on Friday.

Hakim underlined that the Iraqi government has reached its specified goals during the raid, and added, ""The security post which had been scheduled to be set up inside the camp, was established."

"The Iraqi government has officially announced that it will confront any unrest and breach of law, and will not allow trespassing by the camp’s residents anyway,"" Political advisor of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim said.

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

Seven members of an anti-Iranian terrorist group have been confirmed dead during the two-day Iraqi raid on Camp Ashraf.
Commenting upon the fate of the MKO’s members, Mohsen Hakim told FNA, ""The Iranian and Iraqi governments have made lots of efforts to draw a proper mechanism to transfer those who want to come back to Iran.

The official further noted that massive consultations are underway between Baghdad and 12 European states to expel 912 members of the group who have the citizenship or residency of those countries as soon as possible.

The MKO has been in Iraq’s Diyala province since the 1980s. The Iraqi government and parliament has announced that it would not tolerate the group anymore and is seeking to expel the group from the country in the near future.

The anti-Iran terror group has been blacklisted as a terrorist organization by many international entities and countries.
The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).

Many of the MKO members abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.

A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.
According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.

The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.

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 U.S.-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.

The MKO was put on the U.S. terror list in 1997 by the then President, Bill Clinton, but since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the group has been strongly backed by the Washington Neocons, who also argue for the MKO to be taken off the U.S. terror list.

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