Several hundred Iranian exiles were traveling to a UN-approved site near Baghdad on Saturday after leaving Camp Ashraf, where Iranian opposition members have been based for decades.The move is part of a December 25 deal between the UN and Iraq..Iraq had previously aimed to close Camp Ashraf in Diyala province..But Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki said on December 21 that his government had agreed to extend the deadline to April
The plan now agreed to by the Iraqi government should be given a chance to work. As a first step, it calls for the camp residents to voluntarily relocate to a transit site at the Baghdad airport. In contrast to Camp Ashraf, this site would be monitored around the clock by observers from the United Nations. There, the residents would be interviewed by the U.N. refugee agency, the UNHCR, to determine their eligibility for refugee status..
the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the State Department, conducted a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Former CIA official and visiting Georgetown professor Paul Pillar, citing the U.S. government’s definition of terrorism, observed that “with or without confirmation of details of this story, the assassinations are terrorism.” But numerous right-wing pundits ..
The Secretary-General reiterates that the Government of Iraq bears the primary responsibility for the security and the welfare of the residents of Camp Ashraf..At the same time, the residents of Camp Ashraf also bear a responsibility to abide by the laws of Iraq. Any provocation or violence must be avoided and would be unacceptable…UNHCR and UNAMI had confirmed that the infrastructure and facilities at the new relocation camp met international standards.
The Mujahideen e Khalq (MEK) … along with its political arm, the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI) Interestingly, the Bush Administration – and especially Dick Cheney – helped to fund the MEK/MKO/PMOI .If the U.S. and Israel sponsor terrorism, then Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser was correct when he told the Senate in 2007: the war on terror is “a mythical historical narrative”.
Anti-interventionists like Daniel Larison and Global War on Terror critics like Glenn Greenwald are understandably bothered by the hypocrisy in all this. If people are thrown in jail for donating money to terrorist organizations[eg.MKO/MEK/PMOI], how can prominent politicians be on the payroll of one without facing arrest? Isn’t it hypocritical to decry terrorism as irredeemably evil, only to embrace the tactic when it is used against an unfriendly regime?
when Iran was accused of a much milder version of this same crime the mere possibility of a hint of a link, between the Iranians and any dubious characters on US soil was considered, by most of the media,..Will today’s rather damning story get an equivalent treatment?..The party line about a “dangerous Iran” attacking and threatening its neighbours shall continue its residency on our screens,and if you don’t like it… Oh look! A pigeon saved by a monkey!
This is a situation where the U.S. government’s closest ally, receiving billions in annual aid and unmatched diplomatic cover, is cooperating with a group that the State Department itself characterizes as a terrorist organization[MKO/MEK/PMOI], to conduct assassination programs against innocent people in a sovereign nation. Taken in isolation, this is bad enough. But this kind of behavior has the potential to destabilize a very precarious situation and possibly suck the United States into another war in the Middle East.
In light of confirmation by U.S. officials that the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) continues to engage in terrorism, despite the groups claim to have renounced violence, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) calls on all former officials who have taken part in the MEK’s lobbying and PR efforts to immediately cut ties with the organization, donate any money they have received to charity, and work with law enforcement to ..
in the last few weeks the Jewish Lobby in the USA is going out of its way to support the terrorist MEK…Zionist Alan Dershowitz advocating the immediate delisting of an active terror organisation…One may be naive enough to believe that Dershowitz’call is nothing but noble, yet, embarrassingly enough, the same Dershowitz, has never been caught trying to stop his beloved Jewish State from murdering Palestinians in Gaza, in the West Bank ..