Hot Topics

UN mission in Iraq witnesses aftermath of Ashraf attack

Iraq: UN human rights office, UN mission condemn attack on Camp Ashraf

3 September 2013 – The United Nations human rights office and the UN mission in Iraq today strongly UN human rights office, UN mission condemn attack on Camp Ashraf condemned the killing of dozens of people in Camp Ashraf north of Baghdad, urging the Iraqi Government to investigate what happened.

The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) visited the site yesterday, meeting separately with the camp’s surviving residents and the commander of Diyala’s Police.

“Inside the camp, the delegation witnessed 52 bodies in a makeshift morgue,” UNAMI said in a news release, with seven people still missing after Sunday’s attack.

“All the deceased appeared to have suffered gunshot wounds, the majority of them in the head and the upper body, and several with their hands tied.

“The delegation also saw several damaged buildings, including one burnt, and was shown quantities of explosives,” according to the statement.

UNAMI said it mediated between Iraqi authorities and camp’s residents to persuade the residents to allow Iraqi ambulances to transport the bodies of the deceased to the morgue in Baquba. The Chief of Human Rights Office and other members of the delegation remained in Camp Ashraf for further monitoring, the Mission said.

“I call on the Iraqi Government to ensure that a thorough, impartial and transparent investigation into this atrocious crime is conducted without delay and that the results of the investigation are made public,” urged Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General Gyorgy Busztin, who led the visit. He was joined by UNAMI heads of the human rights and of medical sections.

Meanwhile, the United Nations human rights office today urged the Iraqi Government to ensure that medical assistance is urgently provided for the wounded. According to the UN Assistance Mission in the country (UNAMI), Iraqi authorities have confirmed that medical support is being delivered to the Camp.

Camp Ashraf is comprised of Iranian exiles, many of them members of a group known as the People’s Mojahedeen of Iran.

More than 3,000 residents have been relocated to a transit facility know as Camp Liberty while the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) carries out a process to determine their refugee status, and resettle them outside of the country, in line with an agreement signed in December 2011 between the UN and the Iraqi Government.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) also urged the Government to guarantee the protection of the residents who remain in Camp Ashraf as well as those who are currently in Camp Liberty.

“While we are still seeking details of what occurred, we also call upon the Iraqi government to quickly launch a full investigation to establish the facts and disclose the circumstances surrounding this attack,” OHCHR spokesperson Cecile Pouilly told journalists in Geneva.

In a statement from his spokesperson over the weekend, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack and extended his deepest condolences to the families of the victims.

September 5, 2013 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

From Facts To Propaganda: Events Behind The Tragedy At Camp Ashraf

From early morning on Sunday 1st September, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the western Events Behind The Tragedy At Camp Ashraf shop front of the Rajavi cult in Paris, started issuing statements one after another claiming that armed Iraqi forces had carried out an attack, killing some of the remaining people in Camp Ashraf while they have been handcuffed. international media started broadcasting this news and a flood of condemnation and sympathy resulted. It is unfortunate that the original source of this news has been the Mojahedin Khalq (aka MKO, MEK, NCRI), the dangerous, destructive Rajavi cult. The Mojahedin Khalq also distributed pictures which have also been broadcast worldwide, eliciting even more sympathy from various quarters. The speed at which this self-reporting was carried out and the wide circles to which it was distributed clearly shows some amount of readiness in this respect.

The Iraqi government denied any military involvement in Camp Ashraf, and various Iraqi officials condemned this attack no matter how and by whom it was carried out. They have all asked for the intervention of the United Nations and a thorough investigation into this issue. But apparently the Rajavi cult’s side of the story was a more desirable and acceptable one for the western media. Among these western media, the Associated Press coverage is most interesting as it reports on the contradictions among the statements by different Iraqi authorities. When you read the report, it is obvious that all the officials interviewed who have been named by AP have condemned the attack and have asked for international organisations to intervene. But an “unnamed” local police officer has apparently claimed that the Iraqi forces were involved! Later on we find that the so-called “unnamed local police officer” is of course the Rajavi cult itself which has pushed this claim through their connections and friends inside the Associated Press.

We have recently written about Massoud Rajavi answering the question “when will the regime be toppled?” by saying “I am only in charge of your Day of Judgment and no one knows the date of the collapse of the regime”. We put this reply to an expert on Iraq and the Mojahedin Khalq and asked for his opinion. His analytical reply on September 24, 2013 (by emails which can be made available) was that:

“If true, and if he (Rajavi) wants to reduce the [MEK’s] activities, discontinue the [group’s] current situation and give up political activities to retire and attend to his personal life, then he will have two essential needs. One is that he has to somehow convince the United States to sort him out and keep him safe somewhere in Europe and the second need is to get rid of these 3000+ people (in Iraq). As far as I know Rajavi, he is probably planning to expend the lives of these 3000 people for the American secret services to somehow push forward the American agenda in Iraq with their lives; for example chemicals, bombing, poison or similar activities. At the end of the day he would need to get rid of them for good and blame the Iraqi government so that the Iraqi government would be forced to offer some kind of compensation to the Americans and in return the Americans would accept to give him, Rajavi, a place in Europe where he can be kept pickled for a day when he may be useful again”.

Since responsibility for Camp Ashraf was transferred from the American forces to the Iraqis, the Mojahedin Khalq’s line of action has consistently been to engage in violence with whatever means possible face to face with the Iraqi forces in charge of the security of the camp. The Iraqi government has for years tried to pursue the peaceful transfer of this destructive cult from the country with the utmost care and patience. The transfer of Rajavi’s forces from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty, a transit camp, only started after the intervention of the United Nations and Hilary Clinton, then US Secretary of State, who at that time promised the MEK that if they accepted to be transferred peacefully, the United States would remove them from its list of terrorist groups. This was the first step toward transferring them to 3rd countries according to the agreements drawn up between the UN, the Iraqi Government and the MEK. But Rajavi, acting against all that he had accepted, kept some of the forces in Camp Ashraf with the excuse that they should remain to sell any MEK belongings which remained in the camp. At the same time Rajavi every day rejected all and every proposition from potential buyers and then started demanding that his forces be brought back from the transit camp to Camp Ashraf. It is noteworthy that this camp was originally call “Khalis Garrison” and belonged to the Iraqi army under Saddam Hussein, who had illegally given it to Rajavi who later on forcefully confiscated the agricultural lands adjacent to the camp and added them to the garrison.

The Iraqi government has tried to resolve the problem of Camp Ashraf peacefully and according to the agreements made and according to court judgements which specify that the land of the garrison should repossessed, but the leaders of cult have prevented Iraqi officials from entering the camp and declared it to be their property in spite of the court rulings. It is worth mentioning that Camp Ashraf is the only place in Iraq that after 10 years still belongs to Saddam Hussein and has not been entered and investigated and is not under the control of the Iraqi government. It is also worth mentioning that Rajavi has forbidden his forces from using the words “transit” and/or “3rd countries” even though these were part of his own agreement with the UN and its representative Martin Kobler. Rajavi later accused Mr Kobler of being an agent of the Iranian regime.

As the negotiations between the Iraqi government and the leaders of the Mojahedin Khalq were continuing, we at Sahar Family Foundation warned repeatedly that many people have been affected by the crimes committed by this cult, that many people have lost their land and many have lost families and children and are after revenge. We have repeatedly emphasised that Iraq is not a safe place for the members of this cult and they should be cooperating with the United Nations to be taken out of Iraq. Rajavi knows all this but deliberately wanted to keep them in Iraq and especially in Camp Ashraf, which is of course much more unsafe than Camp Liberty. He needed their blood.

The Mojahedin Khalq leaders have repeatedly emphasized that in order to keep Camp Ashraf they need blood. In the April 8, 2011 incident, when Iraqi forces entered the north part of the camp, the leaders had told the members that they should not worry or be afraid and they should go forward and attack the soldiers with whatever they could because the army had not brought any live bullets with them and the bullets they do use are blanks. They deliberately wanted the number of casualties to increase. Survivors of the cult can testify that the leaders of Mojahedin Khalq constantly emphasize that they need blood and constantly encouraged members to create conflict.

What should we expect from a cult and its leader who deliberately sends his follower to their deaths, looks upon them as disposable soldiers, gives them orders to burn themselves and sends them to war without training and arms? In July 17th 2003 when they gave the order for self-immolations , they had promised the victims that they would intervene and extinguish the fire once it was started. But they didn’t, they stood aside and took films. According to many who have managed to escape the cult, they killed many of their own disaffected members by shooting them from the back and then registered them as martyrs from during the bombardment of the coalition forces.

Pictures of this latest incident distributed by the Rajavi cult show how the residents have been handcuffed from behind and then murdered. If it was the Iraqi government, would it not make sense that they would finish it all and not leave someone to take pictures to send to the H.Q. of the cult so that they would broadcast it within such a short time all over the world? Is it not the case that the picture taking and other facilities were prepared in advance?

The reasons behind this can be deduced from recent events in Iraq’s political situation and the Iraqi government’s stand in front of the Americans’ aggressive policies in Syria. That the Mojahedin Khalq leaders kill the members is not a new phenomenon. Killing disaffected members and adding them to the list of martyrs is not new.

The Iraqi government had notified the Rajavi cult that they are running out of patience and will have to take back the camp but Rajavi has acted in advance and this massacre is with no doubt his work and the work of those on his payroll. To place the Iraqi government under international pressure was a favour to the Americans and he also now has fresh new blood to feed his propaganda machine.

If Rajavi dies and comes back to this world a thousand times, it is not enough to pay back what he has done. The first victims of any cult are its own members; individuals who have wasted the last 3 decades of their lives for Massoud Rajavi now have become the victims of a joint cultish and imperialistic game.

We again ask all international organisations to intervene to save the lives of the hostages taken by Rajavi and prevent more bloodshed in future.

Translated by Iran Interlink

September 4, 2013 0 comments

UN Visits Iranian Exiles At Iraqi Camp After Clashes

A United Nations team has visited an Iranian exile camp in northeast Iraq where more than 50 residents were reportedly killed in an assault on September.
that Baghdad says is in the country illegally.

The group has accused Iraqi troops of carrying out the assault. Iraqi officials have denied it.

MKO spokesman Shahin Ghobadi told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda the Iraqi government was trying to "cover up its criminal act against defenseless, unarmed people."

"Nothing has changed in this situation. The prospect of peace is not clear. The only thing, which is clear is that the UN forces — and most importantly, the U.S. government representatives — should go to that place to see what has happened there," Ghobadi added.

"And as [MKO leader] Mrs. [Maryam] Rajavi has said, the United Nations forces should go the scene so the world could become aware of this crime against humanity."

The U.S. State Department said in a statement on September 1, "Those found to be responsible must be held fully accountable."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the United Nations "deplored" the violence and urged Iraqi authorities to investigate what he called the "tragic events" at Camp Ashraf.

The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has set up a probe into the incident. Iraqi officials say no Iraqi troops entered the camp.

Some Iraqi officials allege the violence began with infighting among camp residents. Others suggest explosions at the camp were triggered by mortar fire.

Some 3,000 MKO members were relocated to Camp Liberty on the outskirts of Baghdad last year but some 100 people stayed on at Camp Ashraf to deal with leftover property and goods.

The MKO was founded in the 1960s. The group seeks the overthrow of Iran’s Shi’ite clerical rule, and some of its members fought alongside former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s forces in the Iraq-Iran War of the 1980s.

With reporting by AP, AFP, Reuters, and RFE/RL’s Radio Farda

September 3, 2013 0 comments

Iraq

Iraq Promises Probe Into Iranian Exile Killings

Iraq’s prime minister ordered an investigation Monday into the slaying of half of the roughly 100 remaining residents at an Iranian dissident camp north of Baghdad, where a U.N. team got its first look at the aftermath of the large-scale bloodshed.

The promised probe will do little to appease backers of the more than 3,000 exiles left inside Iraq who believe they remain targets in a country whose government wants them gone.

Supporters of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq members living at Camp Ashraf insist that the Saddam Hussein-era facility came under attack Sunday from Iraqi forces. Iraqi officials have denied involvement, with some suggesting there was an internal dispute at the camp.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office said a special committee is being set up to investigate what happened at the camp, located about 95 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of the Iraqi capital.

In a statement, it said the Iraqi government is committed to ensuring the safety of people living within its borders. But the terse remarks also made clear Baghdad’s impatience with resolving the MEK issue, stressing "the necessity of transferring the MEK members who are staying in Iraq illegally."

The MEK opposes Iran’s clerical regime and until last year was labeled a terrorist group by the United States. It carried out a series of bombings and assassinations inside Iran in the 1980s and fought alongside Iraqi forces in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Saddam granted several thousand of its members sanctuary inside Iraq.

Iraq’s current government is dominated by Shiites hostile to the former regime who have been bolstering ties with neighboring Shiite powerhouse Iran. They consider the MEK’s presence in Iraq illegal and have been trying to expel its followers for years.

Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the MEK’s parent organization, the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, blames the Iraqi government for the killings and says it has no place investigating what happened.

"We have absolutely no confidence in this investigation. None whatsoever," Gobadi said. He called for an international fact-finding committee to investigate and said the perpetrators must be punished.

A U.N. team visited the camp on Monday, but that visit was intended to be "on humanitarian grounds, to assess where we can assist," said U.N. spokeswoman Eliana Nabaa.

The U.N. mission to Iraq at least for now does not have a mandate to conduct a formal investigation, she said. It is not clear what, if any, findings it plans to release.

Camp Ashraf is largely cut off from the outside world. The little face-to-face contact its residents have with outsiders is mainly through the Iraqi military, visiting diplomats and aid agencies.

Iraqi police were able to enter the camp Monday and have begun to investigate the incident, said Jamil al-Shimari, the police chief of Diyala province, where the camp is located.

He confirmed that 52 people had been killed inside the camp, the first time an Iraqi official has provided a death toll that matched that provided by representatives for the exiles. Some of the bodies had bullet wounds and others were burnt, he said.

Al-Shimari said the bodies had been moved to a hangar-like hall before Iraqi authorities arrived, and he expressed concern that would complicate any forensic investigation.

"The MEK people are still saying that they came under attack, but we could not find any evidence that the camp was attacked," al-Shimari said.

A large amount of explosives was found in one of the buildings, al-Shimari said.

The U.S. military disarmed residents of Camp Ashraf following the 2003 invasion. Gobadi, the dissidents’ spokesman, dismissed suggestions of an internal struggle at the camp as "preposterous" and said any explosives at the camp were brought in by the attackers themselves.

The U.N., the United States and Britain have condemned the violence but avoided assigning blame. All three have urged Baghdad to ensure the security of the remaining Ashraf residents and investigate what happened.

Amnesty International also pressed Baghdad to carry out a full and impartial investigation, saying that the Iraqis have failed to conduct effective probes into previous deadly attacks on Iranian exile camps.

"This has meant that no one has been held accountable for these incidents, and that residents live in constant fear for their safety," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, the rights group’s deputy director for the Mideast.

Camp Ashraf was home to more than 3,000 MEK followers until last year, when most residents were transferred to a former U.S. military base near Baghdad.

The Baghdad camp, known as Camp Liberty, is meant to be a temporary way station while the U.N. works to resettle the exiles abroad. It has been repeatedly targeted by militants in rocket attacks that have killed 10 people and injured many more, according to the MEK.

The president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Maryam Rajavi, called Monday for U.N. peacekeepers to be deployed to protect residents at the two exile camps.

That is unlikely to happen for now. Any such deployment would require a Security Council resolution.

The MEK last month accused the Iraqi authorities of deliberately cutting off water and electricity to Camp Ashraf, a charged denied last week by Georges Bakoos, who oversees the MEK issue for the Iraqi government. He has previously said that authorities planned to pursue the eviction of Camp Ashraf residents through Iraqi courts.

The resettlement process has been slow because the U.N. has had difficulty securing commitments from member states to accept the exiles and because some of them are reluctant to be separated from their comrades.

A total of 198 former residents of the two camps have been resettled abroad so far. Most of them have gone to Albania, which has offered to take in up to 210.

———

By ADAM SCHRECK

Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed reporting

September 3, 2013 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

New Clashes at Camp Ashraf

Iraqi forces attacked Camp Ashraf at last midnight.

Reports suggest the clashes on September 1st, left some members dead and injured and some have been arrested by the Iraqi forces. Iraqi forces attacked Camp Ashraf at last midnight

There is no confirmed report on the grounds of the attack.

The Camp Ashraf accommodates about 100 MKO members and the rest have already been transferred to Camp Liberty as a temporary location in preparation for resettling in other countries.

The Iraqi Government has on several occasions declared its intention to completely evacuate the Camp Ashraf.

September 1, 2013 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Shedding light on the terrorist nature of the MKO

Iran; prime victim of terrorism

Shedding light on the terrorist nature of the Mujahedin-e-Khalgh Organization;

Two former members of the terrorist MKO at a press conference in Tehran have elaborated on the terrorist nature of the group which has a long history of hostility and terrorist attacks against the Iranian nation. Ebrahim Khodabandeh and Maryam Sanjabi had been working for the MKO for over 20 years before escaping from the group’s camp in Iraq almost 10 years ago.

The press conference comes only days before the anniversary of the 1981 bombing in Tehran which killed scores of Iranian officials including then Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar and President Mohammad Ali Rajaei who had been elected only three months before. The MKO claimed responsibility for the attack.

The MKO – which the US removed from the list of its terrorist organizations last year- fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where it enjoyed the support of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein, and set up its camp near the Iranian border. The group is notorious for carrying out numerous terrorist acts against Iranian civilians and officials, involvement in the bloody repression of the 1991 Shia Muslims in southern Iraq, and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds in the country’s north under Saddam.

Even after the execution of Saddam Hossein the terrorist group still continues its acts of terror against the Iranians under the support of certain western powers; Iranian security sources say the assassination of a number of Iranian scientists is the result of the direct cooperation between MKO and the US-Israeli intelligence services. Last year the US and Canada joined the EU in removing the MKO from their list of terrorist groups. Iranians were shocked by the decision, as was anyone who favors peace in the Middle East.

Since its establishment, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been targeted by different terrorist groups inside the country that according to experts has made it the prime victim of terrorism in the world.

August 28, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US: from 1953 coup to MKO training in Nevada

Sixty years after the 1953 coup, the US bugs Iran using the MKO

The US Central Sixty years after the 1953 coup, the US bugs Iran using the MKO Intelligence Agency (CIA) officially admits it was behind the coup against Iranian democratically elected Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq in August 1953. However, the release of such a document doesn’t mean that the United States has stopped taking actions to destabilize Iranian government. The Mujahedin Khalq Organization with its dark history of treason and bloodshed against the Iranian nation is now being backed by the US.

The 1953 coup had a severe impact on the aspirations of the Iranian people for democracy and freedom. It severely suppressed the Iranian pro-democracy movement that eventually turned into the Islamic revolution in 1979. Foreign Policy website that first published the news of the CIA’s document on TPAjax operation (the coup was codenamed as Ajax) suggest,” the event’s reverberations have haunted its orchestrators over the years, contributing to the anti Americanism that accompanied the Shah’s ouster in early 1979,and even influencing the Iranians who seized the US Embassy in Tehran later that year.”[1]

Regarding the Iranian people, the newly published document has nothing new because as the Iranian American historian Ervand Ebrahamian tells the Guardian,” The basic facts are widely known to every school child in Iran”. He adds, “Suppressing the details only distorts the history and feeds into myth-making on all sides.”[2]

Actually the United State has never ceased its covert attacks against Iran. Meteor Blades of the Daily KOS lists US hostile acts after the 1953 coup for “curtailing” Iran, “while controversial war, the bomb-bomb-bomb Iran approach has been so far avoided because that still remains a last resort of the bipartisan consensus ,other attacks on Iran have continued ,including by means of Stuxnet, the cyber-weapon built by the National Security Agency together with CIA and Israeli Intelligence and used to temporary cripple the Uranium enrichment operations in Natanz, Iran.” At the end, he notices the role of the MKO in the US-Israeli backed operations against Iranians,” There are, in addition, assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists by the Iranian terrorist organization Mojahedin-e-Khalq assisted with funding and training assistance of America’s ally Israel.”[3]

In April 2012, the investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh published his famous article,” our Men in Iran” in which he revealed that American Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training cources for members of the MKO in Nevada. The MKO agents received training in “commo, crypto, small unit tactics, and weaponry”, a retired US general told Hersh. [4]

Seymour Hersh also cites of a former senior intelligence official that the operations to destabilize IR including the killing of five Iranian nuclear scientists are “primarily being done by the MEK through liaison with the Israelis, but the United States is now providing the Intelligence”. Hersh asserts that the links between the US and the MKO activities against Iran has been long-standing. [5]

In August 1953, the US and British governments toppled one of the most efficient Iranian Prime Ministers because “he tried to nationalize Iranian oil wealth from Britain.” [6] The Guardian puts,” in recent years Iranian politicians have sought to compare the dispute over the country’s nuclear activities to that of the oil nationalization under Mosaddeq.”[7]

While the US spying and terrorist activities by the aid of the MKO continues to irritate Iranians, the American soldier Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison because of leaking intelligence to Wikileaks website. Professors and legal experts and civil rights groups called the sentence “outrageous” and “unprecedented” reported Tom McCarthy of the Guardian. It’s “seriously wrong” for a soldier who shared information with the public to be punished “far more harshly that others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians”, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) told McCarthy. [8] In addition to the case of Manning, we’ve got Julian Assange, the editor- in-chief and founder of Wikileaks and Edward Snowden former CIA agent who is behind his significant revelations on US surveillance program that "destroyed privacy and basic liberties". Both men were forced to live in exile for fear of being imprisoned in their homeland. They are considered as traitors by the US government.

Therefore, the American advocates of the Mujahedin Khalq might be able to understand how the Iranian people and authorities feel about the MKO. The group was sheltered, funded and trained by Saddam Hussein and fought on his side against his own country-men. It was then funded, trained and used by the US and Israel to commit acts of violence and spying on Iranian nuclear activities.

Regarding the recent confessions on 1953 coup and facts on its advocacy for the MKO, the United States should not expect the Iranian public to have a positive view on his alleged green lights for negotiation.

By Mazda Parsi

Sources:

[1] Byrne, Malcolm, CIA admits it was behind Iran’s coup, Foreign Policy, August 19, 2013

[2] Kamali Dehghan.Saeed,Norton Taylor,Richard,CIA admits role in 1953 Iranian coup, The Guardian, August 19,2013

[3] Blades, Meteor, An unhappy 60 birthday” The CIA coup of 1953 still resonates in Iran. Operation Ajax remembered, Daily KOS, August 18,2013

[4] Hersh,Seymour,Our Men in Iran ,the New Yorker Magazine, April6,2012

[5]ibid

[6] AlJazeera,CIA admits organizing 1953 Iran coup, August 20,2013

[7] Kamali Dehghan.Saeed,Norton Taylor,Richard,CIA admits role in 1953 Iranian coup, The Guardian, August 19,2013

[8] McCarthy,Tom, Bradley Manning tells lawyer after sentencing: I’m going to be ok- as it happened, The Guardian, August 21,2013

August 27, 2013 0 comments

Iraq

Iraq denies halting services to MEK

Iraqi authorities deny allegations of shutting off power and water to Camp Ashraf

MEK, an Iranian dissident group, has accused the Iraqi authorities of cutting off water and electricity to a contested northern camp used by its members, a charge the Iraqi government denied Sunday.

The dueling accounts over services are the latest twist in a long-running dispute between the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq dissident group and the Iraqi government over Camp Ashraf, a Saddam Hussein-era community in northeast Iraq that the exiles never wanted to leave.

The dissident group, known by the acronym MEK, alleges that Iraqi authorities shut off power and water supplies to Camp Ashraf on Aug. 10. It claims that Iraqi forces are hauling off parts of the camp’s water system, and says some of the roughly 100 residents are becoming dehydrated inside the camp from a lack of water.

Georges Bakoos, who oversees the MEK issue for the Iraqi government, dismissed the dissident group’s allegations as “propaganda.” He acknowledged there are occasional power cuts at the camp but said they are no different as those in other parts of Iraq.

“I can assure you no order was given” to cut off supplies, he said. Iraqi officials are, however, moving ahead with court proceedings to evict the Camp Ashraf holdouts, possibly as soon as in the next few weeks, Bakoos said.

Most of Iraq lacks a steady supply of electricity. The power supply grows even spottier when demand spikes during the sweltering summer months.

A spokesman for the MEK, Shahriar Kia, said late Sunday that authorities had agreed to provide “limited hours of water and electricity” after more than two weeks of what he described as a total cut of the services.

The MEK is an opposition group to Iran’s clerical regime that fought alongside Saddam’s forces in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Several thousand of its members were given sanctuary at Camp Ashraf. The group renounced violence in 2001 and was taken off the U.S. terrorism list last September.

Iraq’s current Shiite-led government, which has strengthened ties with neighboring Shiite powerhouse Iran, considers the MEK’s presence in Iraq illegal and wants its followers out of the country. It has been working with the United Nations to resettle MEK members, but the process has been slow.

The spokeswoman for the U.N. mission to Iraq, Eliana Nabaa, said U.N. officials are not on the ground at Camp Ashraf and could not confirm the claims about the power and water cuts.

“We take it seriously and are in constant touch with the government of Iraq, and continue taking it up with them to make sure that delivery of Camp Ashraf residents’ humanitarian needs is secured,” she said.

More than 3,000 MEK members who once lived at Ashraf reluctantly relocated to a former U.S. military base near Baghdad last year. It is meant to be a way station for the exiles while the U.N. works to resettle them outside Iraq.

Two raids by Iraqi security forces on Camp Ashraf before residents were transferred to the Baghdad camp left more than three dozen people dead.

The Baghdad-area camp, known as Camp Liberty, has since been targeted by militants in rocket attacks that have killed 10 people and injured many more, according to the MEK.

A total of 162 MEK members have been resettled abroad so far, mostly in Albania.

By ADAM SCHRECK

August 26, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US Likely to Use MKO as Private Army for Conspiracies

It is my fear that the MKO (the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization also known as the MKO, MEK, NCR and PMOI)–if not stopped, will be used as a private army for America, Israel and the West to murder even more Idaho-based political analyst; Mark Glenn people than it already has, says an Idaho-based political analyst.

“I am very excited about what Iran is doing these days in steering the discussion into the right place with regard to terrorism, Israel, Zionism, Imperialism and the rest,” said Mark Glenn, from The Crescent and Cross Solidarity Movement, in an interview with Habilian Association.

"There is no other country like Iran in this regard, standing up to powerful countries with a strong, fearless voice and saying what needs to be said," he added.

He went on to describe the MKO as “an extremely dangerous entity,” due to the fact that “now it has been loosed from its cage and enjoys an air of respectability that it certainly does not deserve as a result of being taken off the terrorist list maintained by the government of the US.”

“It is a mercenary army of cult members who long ago surrendered their identities and their souls to an ideology that is alien to all that is good,” added Mark Glenn, of The Ugly Truth Radio Network.

“Once a person or a group of them has been robbed of their humanity, then all restraints are gone and they are capable of doing the worst, which the MKO clearly has done,” he added.

He underscored that the US government delisted MKO from its list of terrorist organizations only at the behest of Israel.

“My personal prediction is that the MKO–being Iranian–means that it is best suited for carrying out terrorist acts both in Iran and in other places such as the US and Europe where Iran can then be blamed.”

“Given that this organization was willing/able to kill as many as 17,000 of its own people, why would anyone think these animals would have any moral reservations about killing others from other countries?”

He concluded that horrific acts of terrorism, such as school bombings, killing of innocent children, etc, can be carried out by these murderous automatons and which can be then blamed on Iran in the interest of creating war hysteria in the West.

August 25, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Rajavi has difficulty to please the US

Rajavi has difficulty to please the US, When will the US put the MKO aside?

While the Mujahedin Khalq Organization’s propaganda arm spends large amounts of money to buy the support of American high-profiles, US government is not willing to make strategically friendly relationship with the group.

In September 2012, the US State Department removed the Mujahedin Khalq Organization from its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations but American prudent approach to the MKO as a cult-like group that maintains the capacity to commit terrorist acts was clear in the statement the department published to announce the delisting. "With today’s actions, the department does not overlook or forget the MEK’s past acts of terrorism, including its involvement in the killing of US soil in 1992”, the statement reads. “The Department also has serious concerns about the MEK as an organization, particularly with regard to allegations of abuse committed against its own members.”

The US history is full of examples of temporary tactical alliances with terrorist groups such as Taliban, Al-Qaida…. Based on such historical facts, the American prominent scientist and political critic, Noam Chomsky concludes, ”The United States is a leading Terrorist State.” However, none of the above mentioned alliances last forever. They get expired in accordance with the American interests. In the process of the MKO’s relocation from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty, the US administration aided the UN Special representative in Iraq and after the relocation to Liberty and the consequent transfer of a number of Liberty residents to Albania, appreciated the efforts of Martin Kobler on different occasions. On the other hand, the MKO’s American advocates including Rep. Tom Ridge, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Rep. Howard Dean and Democratic Rep. Judy Chu and many other paid advocates of the group call on returning the residents of Camp Liberty to Camp Ashraf.

Although after the delisting, the MKO was allowed to open its office in Washington DC, its position in the US territory is very fragile. What if the US-Iran relations come in to a peaceful conclusion? Will the US stay a safe haven for the MKO? The United States is mchoosier than the MKO leaders to make friends among former enemies of its nation. The MKO’s anti-imperialist long-time strategy is always considered as a dark point by the US.

This is what the MKO fears the most: A normal US – Iran relation which is more likely after the election of an Iranian moderate president. To stop such a “night mare” taking place, the MKO’s propaganda beats harder on war drums trying to portray Dr. Hassan Rouhani as what they call "theocrat”.

Actually, the options are left to the US to whether use or abuse the MKO. The MKO can never be a long-time ally for the US.

By Mazda Parsi

August 24, 2013 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts