The office of Mr. Movafagh Al Rabiee, Iraq’s National Security Advisor, has issued a statement. 
The security forces of Iraq have arrested a member of Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (aka: MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCRI, Rajavi cult) after he failed to carry out his suicide mission inside an Iraqi security base.
According to the source this resident of Ashraf camp (MKO base) gave himself up and is now being kept in secure and safe conditions.
According to the statement this member of Mojahedin Khalq has now complained about the severe exercise of torture and brainwashing techniques employed by the heads of the organisation.
According to his written statements, he claims that: “I was sent with a clear and precise plan to perform a suicide mission in this Iraqi base”.
According to the statement of the office of Iraq’s National Security Advisor, “the aim of this suicide attack has been to put pressure on the security forces of Iraq, to entangle them in this because it is this new force that has taken over the security of Ashraf camp from January 01, 2009”
The statement says it is believed that this was to be used in the media in the Arab world as well as the western media by MKO and its supporters. It also has the aim of making the disaffected members inside the camp afraid of giving themselves up to the Iraqi forces.
The statement adds that every effort is being made to either repatriate him voluntarily or find another country to transfer him. The Iraqi government wishes to announce that while the government of Iraq is committed to all its international obligations, including any promises made to the United State administration, that: “the security forces of Iraq are aware and conscious of the fruitless activities of Mojahedin Khalq Organisation in creating disturbances in Iraqi society and have been briefed to be able to carry out their duties”.
Buratha News in Baghdad, January 19, 2009
http://burathanews.net/news_article_58139.html
Muajhedin-e-Kahlq Iran was considered as the powerful armed opposition against Iran and its objectives was the evident overthrow of the Iranian
regime.
Until the fall of Saddam Hussein, the organization was in the spotlight by its National Liberation Army, the military wing of MKO that has launched many terrorist operations against Iran.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political arm of MKO which is active in Europe and North America, has got the attention of the world due to its large-scale propaganda and systematic fund raising activities.
MKO has repeatedly succeeded to have public attention using its professional propagandistic skills.
The most significant example on the case are the self-immolation acts in London, Paris, Rome, Bern, under the pretext of French Security Police’s raid on MKO bases due to their illegal fundraising activities and terrorist operations (The investigation on MKO headquarters in Paris and 12 other locations and the arrest of 150 members.)
In that raid 9 million US dollars in cash and highly advanced transmission facilities were found at MKO base.
The arrest warrant was issued for 11 of high-ranking officials and Maryam Rajavi, the wife of Masud Rajavi, the MKO leader. Maryam Rajavi, who is called the president – in exile of the organization, was released together with the other detainees.
This bulletin includes the clandestine activities of MKO and the process of their cooperation with Saddam Hussein, their current situation and importance. It also presents the totalitarian characteristic of the organization that has not denounced violence in its political struggle even after the disarmament of its military arm.
“An Iranian resistance group that has been living in exile in Iraq for decades is no longer a welcome guest in the country’’ ,Anita McNaught the correspondent of Fox News in Iraq reported on January 12th. 
Ms. McNaught has based her documented report on evidences made by Iraqi Kurds who were victims of MKO’s atrocities while their cooperation with regime of Saddam Hussein to suppress Kurdish uprisings. Although, as McNaught reports “MKO denies involvement in the repression”, she cites the testimonies of Kurds including a Kurd military commander of Pishmerga who lost many forces of his battalion that was attacked by MKO, and a Kurdish researcher assured her that he has handed many secret documents of Baath Intelligence Service to Human Rights Watch; the documents show that MKO helped the Ba’ath forces to occupy Kirkuk province to resist Kurdish forces.
This two-page report of Anita McNaught gives some evidences on the terrorist nature of the MKO and as she quotes from Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group MEK “acquired its reputation as the ruthless tool of a thuggish regime.”
Finally she concluded with the viewpoint of a Western diplomat:”there is nothing we lose from Camp Ashraf except a huge headache and taxpayer dollars.”, as the reason of MEK’s expired role for the West.
Now that Fox News has too much evidence on the terrorist activities of MKO agents at least in Iraq. There is a question: why does Fox News hire AliReza Jaafarzade, the official member of MKO, as the foreign affair analyst?
Jaafarzade has never denounced his membership in MKO and has always advocated MKO’s cause in his so-called analysis on Fox News programs.
Why such a contradiction in Fox News’ policy?
Mazdak Parsi
As an organization designated FTO by the Department of State and as it is no more useful for the West, the only use of Jaafar Zade’s propaganda on FoxNews is to deceive the MKO members who are captured in Camp Ashraf, Iraq and Camp Maryam, France. Because they have no free access to the mass media, they only can view the Medias filtered by the cult leaders.
Therefore , the systematic propaganda of MKO on TV channels including FoxNews is an effort to keep the members hopeful to an uncertain future.
Mojahedin-e Khalq rewarded for cooperation against Iran?
The State Department has again decided to keep the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MKO) with all its aliases on the US terrorism list. There are a growing number of people who are calling for the US to have done with the group once and for all. Commentators on several blogs and articles suggest the leaders be ‘tried in internationally approved courts and let the membership go home.’ But this ignores the heavy price that has been paid for the group both politically (Iran has constantly accused the US and Europe of double standards on terrorism for their palpable support for the MKO) and financially (one of the key indicators of the actual irrelevance of adding the MKO to western terrorism lists is the tens of millions of dollars, euros and pounds the group has been able to spend on legal challenges and propaganda to keep itself alive – money which must come from somewhere).
With MKO personnel permanently camped-out in most of Europe’s parliaments for the past two years it should come as no surprise that the group will be removed from Europe’s terrorism list when it is announced on January 15. In July 2008, the EU announced that there were “no grounds” to amend the list of terrorist organisations, which includes 48 groups, and EU officials insisted that the decision to keep the MEK on the list of the terrorist groups is not related to the Western efforts to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment program.
What is behind this peculiar change which will redefine the group as non-terrorist in Europe?
As with removal from the UK terrorism list in June 2008, no material difference will accrue to the MKO. In his book on the Mojahedin Dr. Ronen A. Cohen says the MKO “does not have the characteristics of a classic terror organization as it does not initiate terror against innocents” – although the indiscriminate nature of many of its attacks mean 12,000 civilians have been killed in MKO operations inside Iran over two decades.
The most pertinent explanation for why removal from the lists is irrelevant is because the MKO even at the height of its military prowess in 1988 and with the full backing of Saddam Hussein and the west was unable to fulfil its aim of replacing the Islamic Republic with its own rule. Massoud Raajvi’s long term premise that such change would come about as a result of a popular uprising has been pragmatically replaced in the past five years with the conviction that regime change would be imposed on Iran from external powers – the USA, Israel – and that the MKO could reap the benefit of being there as a viable alternative when that happened.
Of these two, perhaps the latter version is currently more possible and perhaps probable even with a new US Administration in place.
So, what use do the MKO’s backers envisage for the group?
The protection of a uniformed anti-Iran mercenary group in Camp Ashraf in Diyali province for five years has been intentional. The price paid has been too great to allow jettisoning the group now, both politically and financially. However, it is important to note that even if it is removed from the UK, EU and perhaps US terrorism lists, the MKO does not enjoy governmental recognition or legitimacy anywhere in the world. Nor does any country need to give the group legitimacy in order to make use of it.
Essentially the use of the MKO is, as Rajavi himself has used them, as perpetrators and victims of violence. The MKO’s talent is that they are trained to kill and be killed according to Rajavi’s order. That they will do this to fulfil a western agenda without needing western approval is the group’s unique selling point and is enough to justify not continuing to label them as terrorists.
There is no doubt that for many observers the removal of the MKO from the European list will clarify the European position toward terrorism. Public opinion in the Middle East has never regarded western terrorism lists as about terrorism per se but as lists of enemies of western interests.
Inclusion of the violently anti-Iranian MKO along with groups which are genuinely anti-western has been a major discrepancy of all the western terrorism lists, a glaring error of political judgement. The MKO may have begun life as an anti-imperialist group with armed struggle its core value, and continued this path under the patronage of Saddam Hussein. But, since its forced disarmament at the hands of the US army, the group has been able to beguile western powers, including Israel, into believing it shares common cause against Iran and is a friend and ally of at least some in the west.
After spending hundreds of millions of dollars on propaganda and legal fees to keep the MKO alive, these backers are now obliged to use this blunted tool in any way they can, perhaps to justify the expenditure, perhaps because they really believe the MKO can be an effective tool against Iran.
Anne Singleton, an expert on the MKO and author of ‘Saddam’s Private Army’ explains, “With a new Administration in the White House a pre-emptive strike on Iran looks unlikely. Instead the MKO’s backers have put together a coalition of small irritant groups, the known minority and separatist groups, along with the MKO. These groups will be garrisoned around the border with Iran and their task is to launch terrorist attacks into Iran over the next few years to keep the fire hot.
“The role of the MKO is to train and manage these groups using the expertise they acquired from Saddam’s Republican Guard. The price the MKO has had to pay is to accept their removal from their main base Camp Ashraf and relocate to other bases not their own. The inducement will be to remove the group from the terrorism list in Europe.”
Once the MKO has been declared in Europe as ‘no longer terrorists’, the group’s overt backers, Lord Corbett, Struan Stevenson MEP, Paulo Casaca MEP, and others who see the world, and in particular Iran, through neoconservative/Zionist tinted glasses will move to promote this coalition in their various circles.
Although it is tempting to cast this move into the sphere of betting both ways on the new Obama Administration’s Iran policy, the key trigger for this move has been the Iraqi government’s insistence on the removal of the MKO from Iraq and the handover of Camp Ashraf to Iraqi sovereignty. This has not been an unreasonable request of US forces over a five year period. However, it is only since the agreed handover of control of Camp Ashraf on January 1 that this became an inevitable outcome. For over a year, MKO backers in western parliaments have lobbied for the MKO to remain in Camp Ashraf on the grounds that the group would be massacred by vengeful Iraqis or forced back to Iran to face certain torture and execution. The falsity of this position has become exposed as the Iraqi government has continued to protect the group and has given repeated assurances that no one will be forced home against their will. Beyond this, the Iranian government’s own position on prosecuting leading members has made it impossible to send anyone back that Iran does not want.
The reason for the insistence on maintaining the MKO in Camp Ashraf – and now in new border based garrisons alongside other armed groups – has been because the only use for the group is to act as an irritant against Iran. If a full scale military attack could not be manufactured which would involve them, then small scale terrorist attacks are the next best alternative.
What all this overlooks, of course, is the human aspect of this group. For years former members of the MKO have warned of severe human rights violations perpetrated against the members. Human Rights Watch conducted its own investigation into the group’s recent history in 2005 and published a damning report titled No Exit. But more recently, those who escaped the camp since its capture by American forces in 2003 and who have managed to reach Europe, are alleging continued cruelties including unnecessary hysterectomies imposed on women to rob them of any hope of having children.
For five years the American army has effectively prevented any independent investigation into these allegations. The primary task of the Iraqi military now in charge of the camp must be to allow humanitarian agencies to access the camp’s residents and individually assess their mental, physical and emotional status. Anything less than this is to condemn 3,250 people to being part of an illegal paramilitary group without their active consent.
This still leaves the fundamental question of what the west will get from its investment in the MKO. It is looking likely that the US will cherry-pick whoever it wants from the MKO to perform in its new coalition strategy. The old, sick, disabled and disturbed will be left for the Iraqi government to deal with.
In view of western patronage of this group, albeit largely covert in nature since it does not acknowledge that it is the group’s willingness to die that is its main use, then it is western countries which ultimately have a responsibility, if not an outright duty, to rescue the group from Iraq. If the group’s membership is indeed moved to other bases in Iraq to continue involvement in acts of violence, then any blood shed will be on western hands not those who are defending their country’s security.
The non-Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), since the overthrow of the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, is seeking another alternative in the west. The MKO strove under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to become the Iraqi MKO and now is striving to become the Israeli MKO.
Since 1985 when the Internal Ideological Revolution and the Divine Leadership of the Rajavis were introduced within the MKO, and the cultic characteristics reached their full development, and since 1986 when the leadership of the MKO moved to Iraq under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and participated in the war against Iran and as well as suppressing the people of Iraq as Saddam’s private army, the organization not only had no presence inside Iran but it was also much hated as far as the Iranian people were concerned.
Since then until the fall of Saddam Hussein, the activities of the MKO against the Iranian regime included border assaults and sabotage activities and sending terror teams from Iraq inside Iran with the aid of the security forces of Saddam Hussein as well as political propaganda in the west. The assaults and terrorist activities were of course ceased when the dictator was toppled in Iraq and the organization was disarmed by the American forces in 2003, and therefore the activities of the MKO were limited to political propaganda in the west; the sort of propaganda of course which would pave the way for terrorism in the future.
Hence since that point up to now the MKO and its leadership have relied not on the Iranian people but on foreign powers to gain rule in Iran and at the present time they are seeking an alternative for Saddam Hussein (this time in the west of course) and have based their strategy on gaining support from potential enemies such as the US, Israel and the UK in place of the previous toppled enemy.
Therefore the presence of the MKO now is merely in the form of the Ashraf garrison (the MKO base in Iraq) and the Maryam garrison (the European base of the MKO in France) which initially is the problem of the newly formed government of Iraq and then the western countries, and is by no means the concern of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
As far as the Iraqi government is concerned, this government knows the MKO as a terrorist group and one of the many miseries left from the era of Saddam Hussein for the people of Iraq and a threat for Iraq’s internal security; and therefore the Iraqi government is demanding that the Ashraf garrison be closed forever, and righteously expects the western governments who have had their use of the organization against Iran to accept them in their countries for their retirement stage.
The political process to de-proscribe the MKO in the EU was begun some time ago. As the UK initiated the proscription of the organization (for any reasons), now the UK is again stepping forward to remove their name from the EU list of terrorist groups, and most likely this will be done in the very near future.
What consequences will arise if the MKO is kept in or removed from the EU list of terrorist groups?
As far as Iran is concerned, the MKO is a matter for the past and whether they are designated as a terrorist group or not would not have the smallest effect. Neither when they moved into the list were any facilities created for the Iranians and nor when they move out will any problem arise in their way. The opposite of course applies for the MKO.
As far as the European countries are concerned they know best how to deal with a terrorist cult in their own territory regarding their national security. If the EU is convinced that the organization is no longer a terrorist group so be it, and we do hope that their judgment is right and the MKO and its leader have truly put aside terrorism; although we do not have any indications for such assumptions.
From the Iraqis’ point of view, who demands that the MKO (who have cooperated with Saddam Hussein in killing innocent people) leave Iraq, de-proscribing the MKO in Europe is good news since the west has no excuses for not accepting them in their countries any more. In the last meeting we had with the Iraqi ministry of foreign affairs they explained that the ministry had invited all European ambassadors in Baghdad to a meeting and urged them to accept the members of the MKO in their countries as political refugees, but they all rejected the request and their excuse was that the group has been designated as a terrorist organization by the EU. But now the Iraqis can of course put their demands forward again.
But the only side who would really suffer from de-proscribing the MKO in Europe is of course the prime victims of such a destructive cult, meaning the members who will be more mentally manipulated when this is shown to them as a victory of the cult and will ensue their continued mental captivity; and therefore their families must pay the price by being away from them and have no news from their beloved ones.
On the issue of closing the Ashraf garrison in Iraq, the MKO is trying hard to make it an entirely Iranian concern. The west is also following the same pattern and demanding an increase in the price of the MKO supposedly for a deal with the Islamic Republic, and perhaps the policy of de-proscribing them in Europe which has started sometime ago is in this line. The MKO is pretending in its propaganda that it is a major issue for Iran and they claim to the world that Iran is striving to get hold of the inhabitants of the Ashraf garrison to take them to Iran and put them on trial and torture them and eventually kill them. Anyone who has the least of knowledge of the MKO surely knows that the claim made by the MKO is somehow ‘escaping forward’ [farar be jelow]. The MKO is merely trying to create such an atmosphere in order to falsify the main issue. Certainly the Islamic Republic is not seeking to get back dead bodies which the owners don’t want anymore. On the contrary Iran logically is trying to smartly use the dissidents of the MKO against it (refer to the quotations made from a western diplomat in Iran in an article written by Geroges Malbrunot in Le Figaro dated December 23) and it is obvious that the Iranian regime is more eager that they are moved to Europe in order to send back the products of a terrorist cult in the shape of human robots to their original place. It is also worth mentioning that in the time of Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq, Massoud Rajavi the leader of the MKO did not send the group’s defectors to Europe and instead handed them over to the Iranian regime. He said clearly on many occasions that the Iranian regime would not do anything to the members of the MKO who have no arms in their hands.
The leaders of the MKO claim that if the US forces move from the Ashraf garrison and leave the posts for the Iraqis, they would not have security in Iraq. This could be true since many Kurdish and Shiites groups in Iraq know this organization as their ruthless enemy who cooperated with Saddam Hussein to suppress them and would wish to take revenge. The solution of course is not for the US to keep their forces there for their security forever. The answer to this problem is that the western governments take them back to their own countries in order to preserve their security. It is worth pointing out that most of these people were political refugees in the west and have been recruited and sent to Iraq from there to join in the National Liberation Army.
Whether the MKO is designated as a terrorist entity or not and whether the US forces stay outside the Ashraf garrison or not makes no big difference to anyone and we are not much concerned about it. As far as the Sahar Family Foundation in Iraq is concerned and we have focused our attention on it, the inhabitants of the Ashraf garrison must enjoy free meetings with their families in some place outside the garrison and without the presence of the MKO authorities and they must have the benefit of having contacts with the outside world and also to have the mental pressures and thought controls lifted from them; and we will stay firm in Iraq and continue our activities until we reach this very important humanitarian goal.
Open Letter to Mr. Mirek Topolánek, President of the Council of Europe
Honorable President of the European Council, Mr. Mirek Topolánek,
We have the honor to inform you that we, the separated members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) who have taken shelter in the European states, have been informed by authentic sources that the European Council will consider and verify the terrorist groups’ list very soon. As far as we know, the European Council intends to remove the name of the PMOI from the present terrorist list as indexed. Whereas, we, the former members of this organization are the direct and ipso facto victims of this cult’s terrorist and cultic activities, so that we have witnessed the crimes of this cult. Therefore, we feel responsibility and it is our human duty to express our humane views in the framework of the democratic regulations of the European Council regarding accurate and effective decision-making with the intention of serving and helping the states of Europe and human beings, in particular, the victims and the caged captives of the Ashraf Garrison in Iraq.
1- We, the emancipated victims of the Mojahedin cult will be pleased and appreciative as we admire Europe’s honest representatives, if the elimination of this sect from the terrorist groups’ list will result in the emancipation and freedom of the incarcerated victims of this cult in the Ashraf Garrison in Iraq. As a result, the locked gate of Ashraf Garrison can be breached and opened for the locked up victims so that the innocent victims can have the right and opportunity to leave Ashraf Garrison and settle down in the European states. Undoubtedly, such an effective step via the European Council can accelerate the rising trend of the eradication of this cult. Subsequently, we, the separated members and the public opinion of the West will welcome the European Council’s decision.
2- We, the liberated victims of this cult declare our opposition versus any political deal and action, which means that this cult shouldn’t be used as a political tool by Europe in the regional balance of power. As a result of such policy, the leaders and key officials of this cult are allowed to have opportunities and facilities such as free trips with the intention of achieving their cultic and terrorist purposes in European countries. Without any doubt, we, the emancipated victims of this cult are the prime victims of such political deals whose lives are at the direct and short range targets of terrorists via this cult in the European states. Meanwhile, the Mojahedin’s cult leadership takes advantage of such conditions to prolong the present impasse situation in Ashraf Garrison in Iraq to confine over three thousand innocent victims in custody in Ashraf Garrison.
Yours truly
The accessible signatories:
NADER NADERI
MOHAMMAD RAZAGHI
MOHAMMAD BAZIARPOUR
HAMMED SARRAFPOUR
MANSOOR NAZARI
HASSAN PIRANSAR
HAMID SIAH MANSOURI
Pers et Avenir association, Paris, January 14, 2009
An Iranian resistance group that has been living in exile in Iraq for decades is no longer a welcome guest in the country and may have no choice but to
return to Iran, where some of its members fear they could be tortured and possibly executed as traitors.
Some 3,400 members of the militant group the Mujahedin-e-Khalq — the People’s Mujahadeen of Iran, or MeK — have lived at Camp Ashraf, a 14-square-mile base north of Baghdad, since Saddam Hussein invited them there in 1986.
But the current Iraqi government, which took control of national security on New Year’s Day, has made it clear that it wants the MeK out. The government is unmoved by a sustained international campaign by the group that has included demonstrations and sit-ins in Washington and Geneva, Switzerland.
The MeK was founded in Iran in the 1960s, when it organized as a group opposed to the rule of the Shah. For more than two decades, it carried out a campaign of bombing and sabotage against the Iranian government, including the killing of U.S. citizens working in Iran in the 1970s, which led it to be designated an international terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.
The MeK cooperated briefly with the clerical regime that overthrew the Shah in the Islamic Revolution, but then it turned against the nation’s new religious leadership, as well.
Despite its history of violence and its official designation as a terrorist group, some U.S. officials have been sympathetic toward the MeK because of the potential that it could be used as a card against Iran. But now that the Iraqi government wants the MeK to leave Iraq, the group’s designation as a terrorist organization is preventing other countries from offering its members a new home, and they fear they may have no choice but to return to Iran.
On Jan. 1, during a visit to Iran, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki re-stated his government’s position:
"Iraq is determined to put an end to this organization because it is affecting relations between Iran and Iraq. This organization participated in many operations that harmed Iranian and Iraqi civilians under the Saddam regime."
Al-Maliki was referring to evidence that the MeK collaborated with the government of Saddam Hussein, particularly during the Kurdish uprising in 1991 when thousands of Kurds were massacred. The MeK denies involvement in the repression and cites supporting statements from, among others, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
Hopes had risen among MeK members and their overseas supporters that they had found a means of remaining in Iraq when the U.S. Embassy said on Dec. 27 that American forces would "maintain a presence at Camp Ashraf … to assist the government of Iraq in carrying out its assurances of humane treatment of the residents."
"It means the United States has recognized its responsibility to ensure the safety and security of our people in Ashraf," said Ali Safavi, an official of NCRI, political wing of the MeK.
But the U.S. government no longer considers MeK members in Iraq to have the protected-persons status the U.S. gave them in 2003, and is privately supportive of Iraqi government efforts to encourage the residents to leave.
The U.S. also doesn’t have the final say, as the Iraqi government assumed responsibility for all detainees on Jan. 1 under the terms of the Security Agreement.
The MeK once had the finest tank division in Iraq and harbored hopes of leading a resistance army back into Iran to topple the Tehran government. But it was disarmed in 2003 by Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, then of the 4th Infantry Division, who put U.S. guards on the gate.
By then, the MeK had many enemies in Iraq as well as in Iran.
Nabaz Rasheed Ahmed, 61, a commander of the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in 1991, said MeK forces attacked his battalion in Chiman, Kirkuk province, in 1991.
"Mujahideen fighters who were backed by Iraqi army helicopters and tanks attacked my battalion in March 29, 1991. They killed many of my Peshmergas and wounded a lot, including me," he said.
The military architect of that uprising was Neywshirwan Mustafa, 64, who now is chairman of the powerful Kurdish media group Wusha Corporation. When told that the MeK denied helping Saddam in his crackdown on the Kurds, Mustafa said:
"That is not true. They were working in cooperation with the Iraqi Army…. They attacked many bases belonging to the PUK.
"They occupied the road from Kanar to Kirkuk. They occupied a hospital in Kanar. They killed a doctor and many other civilian people. Saddam Hussein was protecting them in Iraq".
Abdullah Safir, 59, a Kurdish English teacher who lives in Kifri, in Kirkuk Province, says he was there when the MeK mobilized against his town in 1991.
"I knew they were opponents of the Iranian regime at the time. I did not expect them to intimidate people in a country in which they were guests, and to interfere in internal issues."
Safir recalled how the MeK shelled Kurdish towns "at random," took locals hostage, and in one incident attacked a busload of young people from Kifri, killing all 20. He remembers seeing some of the bodies when they were brought home and said that one or two had been run over by MeK tanks.
Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group, which analyzes the causes of conflict, has also investigated the MeK’s role in Iraq.
"The MEK has yet to own up to its intimate relationship with the Saddam regime, which protected it and deployed it against its enemies when this served its purpose," Hiltermann said. "It thus acquired its reputation as the ruthless tool of a thuggish regime."
Shorsh Haji, a researcher on Kurdish issues who lives in the United Kingdom, escaped from Iraq after the 1991 uprising with many Iraqi secret police documents and worked with New York-based Human Rights Watch to analyze the content. He said the mukhabarat — a branch of Saddam’s intelligence service — wrote in their reports that the MeK "heroically resisted the rebels and traitors who wanted to occupy Kirkuk."
The intelligence the MeK had on Iran made them most useful to Saddam — and later, to the United States, Haji said. And that, he said, accounts for the protection the U.S. gave them at Camp Ashraf.
One MeK member told FOX News that the group gave the U.S. the names of "32,000 Iranian agents working inside Iraq." She also mentioned MeK’s purported role in revealing the extent of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, though subsequent reports support the view that Israel actually provided the information for the MeK to release.
Iraq has told the residents of Camp Ashraf that they must be gone by March of this year. It has promised they will not be forcibly repatriated to Iran, but it is not clear where else they could go.
Sources told FOX News that the Iranian government has a list of 50 "most wanted" MeK members, around 20 of whom are believed to live at the camp.
In recent years Iran has made much of a new policy of humanely "readmitting" former MeK members into Iranian society, with the help of a group of ex-members called the Nejat Society, which means "Rescue."
Behzad Saffari, legal adviser for the MeK, told FOX News: "Anyone who repents or remorses the past are welcomed by the Iranian regime and can be used against the MeK. They are a useful commodity. But anyone who goes back to Iran and still keeps the ideas of the MeK — they will be executed."
Approximately half of the residents of Camp Ashraf are under 30 years old, too young to have been part of the MeK’s fighting past.
But this may partly explain why the MeK has outlived its usefulness. A Western diplomat told FOX News: "There’s nothing we lose from Camp Ashraf except a huge headache and taxpayer dollars."
Qassim Khidhir Hamad contributed to this report
By Anita McNaught
Following is a partial transcript of the debate in the House of Lords on Monday on the terrorist listing of MKO
People’s Mujaheddin Organisation of Iran Question
2.44 pm
Asked By Lord Waddington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to observe the latest judgment of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities concerning the People’s Mujaheddin Organisation of Iran.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Malloch-Brown): My Lords, mindful of the clear judgment of the Court of First Instance of 4 December 2008 annulling the July 2008 listing of the PMOI, the UK believe that EU member states must observe and respect the court’s judgment in the current review of the EU list of terrorist organisations.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his reply, but I think that he will agree with me that so far the British Government have not covered themselves in glory, having abstained rather than supported the Court of Appeal’s decision that the PMOI was not a terrorist organisation when the matter was before the Council of Ministers some months ago. Did not the European Court say in its judgment of 4 December that the British Government’s excuse for abstaining on that occasion—namely, that they had to vote either for or against the whole list of terrorist organisations—was wholly spurious? Surely
12 Jan 2009 : Column 1008
we are entitled to expect that from now on the Government will ensure that the judgments of the Court of Appeal and the European Court are observed and that the European Union respects the rule of law.
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, the noble Lord is, as always, gracious; he was kind enough, in attributing the spurious response to the Government, not to say that it was my response in this Chamber to him and others. This gives me the opportunity to say that, while the Court thought the view incorrect that it was impossible to vote against only one member of that list, I checked back with officials, who have reconfirmed that it is up to the presidency of the European Council at the time to determine how such business is dealt with. A whole list was given and there was no option but to vote it up or down. Therefore, if we had not abstained, other terrorist organisations would have been delisted.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to hear the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, supporting so strongly the EU Court of Justice and the importance of obeying its rules. We all recognise the delicacy of defining a terrorist organisation. I am not an expert on the PMOI, but I have some hesitation about it, which arises from the fact that right-wing think tanks, Washington, Christopher Booker and the Sunday Telegraph are among its strongest proponents. Does the Minister accept that we are concerned about the delicate line between legitimate exiled organisations in this country and terrorist organisations? For example, the last day we met in December, the VHP from India was mentioned in the context of raising charitable moneys in this country that may go through to violence against minorities in India. Are the Government looking overall at the question?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, we constantly review which organisations we believe should be proscribed. It is enormously important that our reviews and the decisions that we and our European partners make are subject to scrutiny by the courts. In this case it is clear that courts both at the national and the EU levels have found repeatedly against our desire to proscribe this organisation and it is enormously important that we accept and respect those judgments.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, will my noble friend reassure the House in clear and absolute terms that every future vote cast by Her Majesty’s Government will aim at the removal of the word “terrorist” in relation to the PMOI?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, let me be clear: at the end of this month there will be a decision on this issue by Ministers at the European level. Let me be equally clear that the UK will, both in the working meetings that precede that decision and at the time of the decision itself, urge respect for the decisions of the courts.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, will the noble Lord explain why, if one is excluded, all others are excluded? Surely there is a form of assessment on the merits of each case. What is going on?
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Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, each organisation is individually considered by the working committee that gives advice to the Council of Ministers. It is then the prerogative of the presidency to decide how a vote is taken on the list derived from those discussions. The last presidency determined that the vote should be on the list as a whole and that the list should be either adopted by consensus or rejected. It was not possible, in the view of the officials involved, to demand a vote on individual organisations on the list.
The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham: My Lords, in the light of the PMOI’s hopes for a Government in Iran who respect religious freedom, what action are Her Majesty’s Government taking on the position of the seven leaders of the Baha’i community who have been imprisoned without trial and held in severe conditions and who are now threatened with execution for no other crime than their religious beliefs?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, we are very much aware that seven leading members of the Baha’i community have remained in detention without formal charge since their arrest in the first half of last year. We received reports in December that the group had been sentenced to death and that executions were imminent, although we have been unable to confirm this and cannot therefore substantiate the reports. Since the arrests, we have made several representations to the Iranian authorities calling for the group’s release and will continue to monitor developments closely. I associate myself with the right reverend Prelate in saying that this is an extraordinary attack on freedom of religion in that country.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, in view of the court decision that effectively removes the PMOI from the terrorist list, it would be quite wrong to seek its inclusion on the EU’s asset-freeze list?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, the two lists are in this sense linked. The deproscribing of the PMOI indeed has knock-on effects on the organisation as a whole.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, when the decision comes before European Ministers at the end of this month, will there be an individual decision on the PMOI? Will the Government then vote for deproscription?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, in the light of the court decision, we hope that the list, when it arrives before Ministers, will ideally not contain the PMOI.
MKO is an exiled cult-like organization that resorts to armed attacks to destabilize the government in Tehran.
The US State Department has declared that the official designation of Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group is appropriate.
In a notice published Monday in the Federal Register, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the MKO group should remain in its list of terrorist organizations.
The US announcement comes amid Iraqi government efforts to expel members of the terrorist group. Baghdad assumed control of the security of Camp Ashraf, the main MKO military base in Iraq’s Diyala province, on January 1, 2009.
The Mujahedin Khalq Organization is blacklisted by many countries, including EU member states and the United States as a terrorist organization. It relocated to Camp Ashraf from Iran after the Islamic Revolution.
Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the MKO enjoyed the support of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain, who provided the group with arms and military equipment to launch attacks against the Islamic Republic during the Iraqi war against Iran (1980-88).
The Iraqi government says the MKO has played a significant role in destabilizing the war-torn country, blaming the group for terrorist attacks within Iraq.
The recent move provoked the group to file a petition in order to take the case to the court.”We will take the case to the court and we will win,” a Paris-based spokesman for the group, Shahin Gobadi, proclaimed.
The MKO has sought to have the group removed from the list of terrorist organizations, lobbying the European parliament and officials.
Baghdad urges the expulsion or relocation of the terrorist group, saying the MKO presence at Camp Ashraf may strain its diplomatic relations with Tehran.
In addition to terrorist attacks within Iran, which claimed the lives of 12,000 civilians, the MKO helped Saddam in suppressing Iraqi Kurds.
The U.S. State Department reaffirmed its designation of the anti-Iran Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization as a terrorist organization.
The presence in Iraq of the MKO has long been a source of friction between Washington and Baghdad, which intends to expel the terrorist group.
The MKO had filed a petition for revocation of its designation as a terrorist organization. But U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote in a notice published Monday in the Federal Register that after reviewing the case she determined that the designation is still valid and appropriate.
Iraq’s government has long sought to get rid of the MKO, but the issue took on new urgency when Iraq assumed greater sovereignty Jan. 1 under a new security agreement that gave the Iraqis responsibility for Camp Ashraf.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said on Jan. 1 that the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization can ""no longer operate in Iraq"".
The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.
The MKO is on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze, and has been designated by the U.S. government as a foreign terrorist organization. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visits Brussels and despite the ban enjoys full freedom in Europe.
The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).
In recent months, high-ranking MKO members have been lobbying governments around the world in the hope of acknowledgement as a legitimate opposition group.