The Third View on Mujahedin Khalq

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

British MPs consider the MKO terrorist

Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who was heading a parliamentary delegation during a three-day visit to Iran, had a press conference in the Iranian capital on Wednesday, January 8. Jack Straw confirmed that the UK government condemned any form of terrorism

To answer a question on the support for the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) and its terror acts by the British Government, Jack Straw said that when in 2009 he was the UK Justice Minister, he passed legislation based on which the MKO was outlawed in Britain and was considered a terrorist entity.

”The MKO is a terrorist organization", he added. After the MKO was listed as a terrorist group in 2009, the group petitioned its case to the appeal court and ultimately the court ordered its delisting.

The UK delegation also visited a number of families of terror victims killed by terrorist groups, such as Mujahedin khalq on Thursday. The son of one of the victims of the MKO asked the UK officials to return the MKO to the list of terrorist groups.

Families of assassinated nuclear scientists asked the British MPs to tie bans on trafficking of the MKO terrorists in Europe.

Jack Straw confirmed that the UK government condemned any form of terrorism. "The British government has condemned the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientists", he said.

Ben wallace another member of the UK parliamentarian delegation spoke of the probability of relisting of the MKO as a terror group.

The Britain-Iran Parliamentary Friendship Group seeks better relations with Iran. The delegates met with counterparts from the Iranian Majlis.

January 11, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US to flood Romania with terrorists

Washington may turn Romania into a hotbed of tension, which will prove quite a headache both to Romania proper and the neighbouring countries. The point is the United States is making efforts to move several thousand members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran organization (Mujahedin-e Khalq) from Iraq to Romania. The so-called civilized society’s care for radical Islamists is due to the fact that the Mujahedin see their mission in fighting Iran, which the West also seeks to weaken by all means available.

Both Iran and Iraq see Mujahedin-e Khalq as a terrorist organization. The armed wing of the organization, – the National Liberation Army of Iran, is believed to have founded the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which brings together all of Iran’s opposition forces. Those who opposed the rule of the Shah of Iran started their resistance in the middle of the 1960s on a romantic idea of building a class-free socialist society, but as time went on, the idea degenerated into mass-scale terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage. The Iranian authorities’ sharp rebuff caused Mujahedin-e Khalq to move to the neighbouring Iraq, whence it launched armed attacks on Iran during the Iran-Iraq War and helped the Iraqi regime to quash Kurdish rebellions. Mujahedin-e Khalq went on with its attacks on Iran in the subsequent years taking advice from and controlled by the United States.

But the impressive "record of service" (some 50,000 people killed, including Iran’s top-echelon officials) proved no hindrance to the EU and US recent decision to strike Mujahedin-e Khalq off their list of terrorist organizations. The EU and the US obviously proceeded from the assumption that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", although the two saw Mujahedin-e Khalq as terrorists just a short while ago.

Washington’s plan to deploy the Islamists in Romania is inappropriate at the very least, says Russian expert in Oriental Studies Boris Dolgov, and elaborates.

"If the Romanian leaders have certain doubts, and they will certainly question the correctness of the decision, then they should stiffly oppose the move. The organization acts against Iran, Tehran sees it as terrorist, Mujahedin-e Khalq is known for numerous terrorist attacks and life attempts. Besides, the US plan is at variance with the recent trend towards improving relations between Washington and Tehran. Also, a presence of Islamic militants will serve to aggravate tension in the region. It’s obvious that peaceful coexistence with the people of other religions is the last thing the Islamists will think of when arriving in Romania".

So far, the US attempts have proved futile, even though Romania heavily depends on Washington. The US sees Romania as an important nation in terms of its geopolitical interests, and has been patronizing Bucharest throughout the post-Soviet period. But the pay Washington has demanded seems clearly excessive.

Yet, when the US State Secretary John Kerry met with his Romanian counterpart Titus Corlaţean in Brussels in December, they took up the issue of moving the Mujahedin in question to Romania, according to some reports. A year earlier, Germany and Albania said they were prepared to accommodate Mujahedin-e Khalq militants. But the organization chiefs insist on a compact settlement of all three thousand militants, who are currently making their home at a US military base in Iraq. But the Albanian and German authorities see this as too dangerous. The terrorist leaders are in a stalemate. They are welcome nowhere, while in Iraq they have been coming under rocket fire recently. The organization activists put the blame at the current Iraqi government’s door, namely because the Iraqi Cabinet has been openly demanding that the terrorists be removed from the country.

Action on the US plan is fraught with danger, but is highly improbable, points out an expert with the Moscow-based Institute for Strategic Studies and Analysis, Sergei Demidenko, and elaborates.

"A transfer of a large group of people, drilled ideologically and militarily, to an unstable European area will clearly add no quiet to the area. But Romania will hardly approve the scenario, since Bucharest realizes that Romanians will otherwise have to deal with people of specific mentality, oriented to fighting the non-Moslems, or kuffar, which is about the only thing they can do at all. But if the events do follow that scenario, this will only serve to further aggravate the situation around Islamic radicalism in Europe, the more so since the European security services can do nothing to counter Al-Qaeda militants who are active in southern Europe".

Of course, one may admit by a stretch of imagination that sticking to its friends in trouble is kind of noble of the United States; the more so since the US is due to build a military base in Romania, where the militants could be accommodated at first. Also, the recent agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme involving the United States will hardly prove a watershed event in the Iran-US standoff. Washington has not forgone up the plan to deploy its missile defence system in Europe to defend the West from Iran’s missile strike.

Whether to accept the members of an organization, placed on a par with Taliban and Al-Qaeda, or not depends wholly on the Romanian government, which will likewise be solely responsible for its decision. The authorities of the neighbouring Ukraine will also have food for thought. The well-trained fighters may prove effective as a force to change the government or at least rock the unstable situation, for they are not used to sitting idly.

Ilya Kharlamov – Voice of Russia

January 11, 2014 0 comments

Ban appoints Holl Lute to aid relocation of Liberty residents

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Jane Holl Lute as his Special Adviser for Relocation of Camp Hurriya Residents Outside of Iraq. Ban appoints Holl Lute to aid relocation of Liberty residents

Camp Hurriya, located near the Baghdad airport, is home to some 3,200 Iranian exiles, many of them members of a group known as the People’s Mojahedeen of Iran who have been in Iraq since the 1980s.

Since 2011, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) together with the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), has been trying to find relocation opportunities outside Iraq for all camp residents. So far, the international community has secured relocation to third countries for only 311 residents.

In her new role, Ms. Holl Lute, a citizen of the United States, will work with a wide range of stakeholders, in particular Member States, to assist in relocating the camp residents, according to a statement from Mr. Ban’s spokesperson.

Among her previous roles, Ms. Holl Lute served as the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support and Assistant Secretary-General for Mission Support in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO).

Ms. Holl Lute most recently held the post of US Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. She was also the Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer of the UN Foundation and the Better World Fund, among other positions.

The newly appointed UN official will work with Mr. Ban’s Special Representative in Iraq and UNAMI head, Nickolay Mladenov, who last week reiterated that the Iraqi Government bears the responsibility for protecting the camp’s residents, as part of an agreement it signed with the UN in 2011.

Camp Hurriya, as well as Camp New Iraq (formerly Ashraf) which had previously housed the group, have been targeted for violent attacks.

January 6, 2014 0 comments

UN calls on Iraq to ensure safety of Liberty residents

The United Nations today called on the Iraqi Government to ensure maximum security for some 3,200 Iranian exiles in a camp near Baghdad airport after a rocket attack on the airport last night reportedly killed a number of residents and seriously wounded others. UN calls on Iraq to ensure safety of Liberty residents
"This is another stark reminder of the increasing violence in Iraq,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative Nickolay Mladenov said, voicing deep concern at the attack, in which rockets fell on Camp Hurriya, which houses the exiles, many of them members of a group known as the People’s Mojahedeen of Iran who heration with the Camp Hurriya leadership, needs to take immediate action to ensure that appropriate measures are put in place to maximise the security of the residents,” he added, stressing that responsibility for protecting the camp’s residents falls on the Government under an agreement it signed with the UN in 2011. “This latest incident must be fully investigated by the authorities and those responsible brought to justice."

Both Mr. Mladenov and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) urged the international community to urgently intensify efforts to find resettlement opportunities. “This is the ultimate guarantee of the security and safety of Camp Hurriya residents," he said.

Strongly condemning the rocket attack, UNHCR appealed to countries to act urgently on 1,400 cases from Camp Hurriya that have already been submitted for relocation. Since 2011, UNHCR, together with the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), has been trying to find relocation opportunities outside Iraq for all 3,200 residents of the camp, but so far, the international community has secured relocation to third countries of only 311 residents.

The agency said three residents were reportedly killed in the attack and many more wounded, at least four of them seriously and rushed to hospitals by the Iraqi authorities.

Camp Hurriya has already been hit on multiple occasions. Camp New Iraq (formerly Ashraf), where residents were previously staying, was also the target of an attack in the past. UNHCR has consistently deplored such unacceptable attacks.

“UNHCR remains deeply concerned for the safety of the residents of Camp Hurriya and is calling on the Government of Iraq to urgently scale up security measures in the camp to ensure the safety and security of its residents,” the agency said in a statement. “We are also urging the Government to launch a full scale independent investigation into all the incidents.”

December 28, 2013 0 comments

Camp Liberty

Iran dissidents ‘killed in Iraq missile attack’

A rocket attack has killed three members of an Iranian opposition group in Iraq, the group and its parent Iran dissidents ‘killed in Iraq missile attack’ organisation say.

They say a number of people from the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) group were injured at Camp Liberty in Baghdad.

Baghdad has in the past repeatedly denied attacking the group.

MEK members fought with Iraq against Iran in the 1980s, but have since fallen out with the current Iraqi government.

In an emailed message, the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the MEK’s parent group, said dozens of missiles hit the camp on Thursday evening.

It said two residents were killed and a third later died in hospital of his wounds.

The camp is located in a former US military base, near Baghdad’s airport.

The Iraqi authorities have made no public comments on the report. However, one security official was quoted by the Associated Press as saying four rockets hit the camp, injuring two people.

In September, the MEK accused Iraqi forces of attacking Camp Ashraf north-east of Baghdad and killing 52 of the group’s members.

In recent years, Baghdad has been trying to dismantle MEK camps and eject the group.

Iran considers the MEK a terrorist group.

The group was removed from the US state department’s list of terrorist organisations last year.

December 28, 2013 0 comments

Camp Liberty

Wathiq al-Batat claims responsibility for Camp Liberty missile attack

A camp of Iranian dissidents in the Iraqi capital was hit by rockets on Thursday in an attack the group said killed three residents and seriously wounded several others. Wathiq al-Batat claims responsibility for Camp Liberty missile attack

A Shi’ite militia claimed responsibility for the attack on the Mujahadin-e-Khalq (MEK) camp in western Baghdad, which has repeatedly been the target of mortar and rocket attacks in recent months.

The group, which calls for the overthrow of Iran’s clerical leaders and fought on Iraq’s side during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, is no longer welcome in Iraq under the Shi’ite-led government that came to power after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

A Paris-based spokesman for the MEK, Shahin Gobadi, said three people had been killed when “Camp Liberty,” located in a former U.S. military compound, was hit with dozens of missiles.

Several of the wounded were in a critical condition, said Gobadi, adding that more than 50 had been reported injured. The group accused the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of being behind the attack in an attempt to win support from Iran’s government ahead of elections next year.

Iraqi authorities have repeatedly denied involvement in attacks on the group.

In a rare claim of responsibility for attacks on the MEK, Wathiq al-Batat, commander of the al-Mukhtar Army militia, told Reuters his group had fired 20 Katyusha rockets and mortar rounds at the camp.

“We’ve asked (the government) to expel them from the country many times, but they are still here,” he said, accusing the group of communicating with Sunni and Shi’ite politicians he said were linked to al Qaeda.

The U.S. State Department condemned the attack “in the strongest terms.” In a statement, it urged the Iraqi government to take additional steps to secure the camp against further violence and “to find the perpetrators and hold them accountable for the attack.”

Al-Mukhtar Army is a relatively new Shi’ite militia, which has said it is supported and funded by Iran. Batat is a former leader of the more well-known Kata’ib Hezbollah militia.

Shahriar Kia, another spokesman for MEK who lives in the camp he said houses about 3,000 Iranian dissidents, said two men were killed when a rocket fell near their caravan.

“I saw two caravans set ablaze and black smoke billowing,” he said. “We are still taking shelter inside the caravans out of fear of more shelling.”

Police sources confirmed the camp had been targeted by mortars and said four wounded Iranians had been transported to a hospital in western Baghdad.

More than 50 people were killed at a separate MEK camp north of Baghdad in September. The attack drew condemnation from the United States and Britain.

(Reporting by Suadad al-Salhy, Ahmed Rasheed and Kareem Raheem; Additional reporting by Peter Cooney in Washington; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by David Evans and Bill Trott)

December 28, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK Purchases 27 US Senate Votes for War With Iran

On Tuesday, I posited that the threat of new sanctions kicking in if a final agreement on nuclear technology is not reached could serve as a strong incentive for Iran to bargain in good faith with the P5+1 MEK Purchases 27 US Senate Votes for War With Iran group of nations. But then, on Thursday, an actual sanctions bill was introduced. Ali Gharib took the time to read it (he got an advance copy and posted about it Wednesday) and what he found is profoundly disturbing (emphasis added):

The legislation would broaden the scope of the sanctions already imposed against Iran, expanding the restrictions on Iran’s energy sector to include all aspects of its petroleum trade and putting in place measures targeting Iran’s shipping and mining sectors. The bill allows Obama to waive the new sanctions during the current talks by certifying every 30 days that Iran is complying with the Geneva deal and negotiating in good faith on a final agreement, as well as meeting other conditions such as not sponsoring or carrying out acts of terrorism against U.S. targets.

In accordance with goals laid out frequently by hard-liners in Congress and the influential lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the bill sets tough conditions for a final deal, should one be reached with Iranian negotiators. Among those conditions is a provision that only allows Obama to waive new sanctions, even after a final deal has been struck, if that deal bars Iran from enriching any new uranium whatsoever. The bill states Obama may not waive sanctions unless the United States and its allies “reached a final and verifiable agreement or arrangement with Iran that will … dismantle Iran’s illicit nuclear infrastructure, including enrichment and reprocessing capabilities and facilities.” (Congress could also block Obama’s waivers by passing a “joint resolution of disapproval” against a final deal.)

Although Gharib ascribes the war mongering aspects of this bill to positions advocated by AIPAC, the work (and funding money) of MEK, which advocates for (in my opinion, violent) regime change in Iran, seems to be just as likely, if not more likely, to be behind this hideous piece of legislation. The chief architect of the bill is Robert Menendez (D-NJ). He lists his cosponsors (Menendez’s original release claimed 26 cosponsors and the news stories linked below also cite 26, but Corey Booker was added to the list this morning while this post was being written. The press release was changed to add Booker to the list without changing the 26 to 27. The press release at the old URL was wiped out so that an empty page is returned. The date of December 19 for the release was also retained.):

The legislation was co-sponsored by twenty-six senators [sic], including: Senators Menendez, Kirk, Schumer, Graham, Cardin, McCain, Casey, Rubio, Coons, Cornyn, Blumenthal, Ayotte, Begich, Corker, Pryor, Collins, Landrieu, Moran, Gillibrand, Roberts, Warner, Johanns, Hagan, Cruz, Donnelly, Blunt and Booker.

Perhaps the only encouraging aspect of this long list of bipartisan backers of war is that back in June of 2012 this group got 44 signatures on a Senate letter calling for all negotiations with Iran to cease unless three conditions were met:

The senators wrote that the “absolute minimum” Iran must do immediately to justify further talks is to shut down the Fordo uranium enrichment facility near Qom, freeze all uranium enrichment above 5 percent, and ship all uranium enriched above 5 percent out of the country.

Note that the current agreement does stop enrichment above 5%. It also calls for half of the 20% uranium to be diluted back down to 5% while the other half is converted to a chemical form for fuel that can’t easily be further enriched. Qom is not shut down, but the agreement does spell out specific numbers of centrifuges that can be used at the two enrichment sites.

But consider this for a moment. Most of what these war mongers were lobbying for last year actually appears in the interim agreement, and so they have been forced to move the goalposts in order to reach a point that they think won’t be part of the final agreement. What they want is a war to change the regime in Iran, not a diplomatic solution that prevents nuclear weapons being developed by Iran.

It became obvious during the final discussions that led to this interim agreement that Iran insists on its right to low level enrichment to produce fuel for nuclear power plants. Since that is seen as a deal-breaker for Iran, it is precisely what the MEK now sets as the determinant of whether sanctions that will certainly lead to war are enacted.

The intellectual dishonesty surrounding this move by MEK shills in the Senate is stunning. They claim, as stated in Menendez’s press release that their goal is “the complete and verifiable termination of Iran’s illicit nuclear weapons program”. Low level enrichment is not part of a weapons program and yet this group insists that Iran also must abandon low level enrichment along with any aspects of a weapons program.

Even more disturbing is that stories today by both the New York Times and CNN mention the introduction of the bill but don’t get around to explaining that the bill calls for the extreme sanctions if all enrichment is not abandoned and that that condition is almost certainly a deal-breaker for Iran.

There is at least some push-back within the Senate. A letter signed by ten Democratic committee heads has been sent to Harry Reid strongly advocating against bringing the bill up for a vote. Sadly, the letter fails to point out the manner in which Menendez’s bill undercuts the ongoing negotiations by setting terms that almost certainly are not going to be a part of any final agreement with Iran. There also is an op-ed (in Politico!) by Carl Levin and Barbara Boxer lobbying against the bill. Significantly, Levin was one of the 44 signatories on the June, 2012 letter but now seems to have come around to favoring diplomacy over war. Failing all this, the White House has promised to veto any bills calling for new sanctions since they clearly violate the interim P5+1 agreement.

by Jim White, Emptywheel.net

December 22, 2013 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

It’s Time to Close the Camps

The last quarter century has been a time of great change across the globe, much of which has been for the better. The number of electoral democracies has grown from 69 in 1989 to 118 today. Despite

Michael Rubin Russia’s resurgence, the instability wrought by the Arab Spring, and the dangers posed by rogue regimes, the world remains far freer now than at any point in history.

How tragic it is, then, that so many tens of thousands remain effectively imprisoned in political concentration camps. North Korea, of course, is the world’s worst violator. According to the Guardian, the left’s flagship paper, up to 200,000 North Koreans remain imprisoned. CNN has detailed some of the ongoing horror in the six camps, and any report from the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea is worth reading. The Hermit Kingdom is not alone, though.

For decades, China has also maintained a series of “re-education through labor” [laojiao] camps. And while the Chinese government has recently promised to dismantle its network, actions ultimately speak louder than words.

The United States might have little leverage over China and North Korea, but low-hanging fruit which could be resolved with American diplomatic pressure does exist. The Mujahedin al-Khalq (MKO) is correct to castigate those who believe that the Iranian government or its militia proxies should enjoy an open season on group members. Opposing massacres is not synonymous with support for the group, however; it may no longer be a U.S.-designated terror group, but remains just as much an authoritarian cult. And while MKO spokesmen may castigate the Iraqi government and the Iranian regime, the real victims of the MKO lay within the group itself. Camp Liberty—the successor to Camp Ashraf—exists as much if not more to keep MKO members insulated from the real world and under the control of MKO leader Maryam Rajavi’s commissars than as a means of protection for group members.

Other camps exist in the Tindouf province of southwestern Algeria. Here, perhaps 40,000 residents of southern Morocco, Algeria, western Mali, and northern Mauritania languish in camps controlled by the once-Marxist Polisario Front, largely kept from returning home by the group’s political commissars and the Algerian government. During a recent visit to Dakhla, in Western Sahara, I had the opportunity to speak to former members who described not only their own escape from the camps, but the attempts by others who were forcibly returned to the camps, where Polisario authorities punished them for the audacity of seeking to return home rather than languish in camps 22 years after the war between Morocco and Algeria ended. Simply put, Polisario realizes that if the camps close, the gravy train of international assistance would end and the Polisario would lose its raison d’être.

The Polisario is not the only Cold War remnant stubbornly holding hostages. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia also engages in the practice, holding some prisoners for more than a decade. While some journalists parachute in and whitewash just what happens in FARC camps, it is hard to see “cultural programming” as anything other than an attempt at ideological re-education.

The Obama administration came into office seemingly committed to prioritizing human rights, never mind the debates about how best to guarantee rights, freedom, and liberty. The State Department became a revolving door not only for journalists, but for human-rights advocates, most notably Human Rights Watch’s Tom Malinowski and writer Samantha Power. Increasingly, however, it seems such figures are either window dressing for an administration so disinterested in human rights that it is willing to sanction political concentration and re-education camps or, worse yet, that these figures are so permeated by moral equivalency and skewed in their understanding of what universal human rights are that they are willing to normalize with the regimes, sponsors, and groups which engage in such practices.

Concentration camps and slavery (discussed in a previous post) are two phenomena that simply should not exist in the 21st century. That they do is a sad testament to the reality of regimes like North Korea’s, China’s, Algeria’s, Venezuela’s, and Cuba’s, and the choices which successive U.S. administrations–both Democrat and Republican–have made to not let such issues be stumbling blocks to engaging with the United States on other issues.

Michael Rubin, Commentary Magazine

December 18, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Notes on the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq and Americans in Paris

On Saturday, 7 December 2013, in an auditorium at the Bourse in Paris, France, Maryam Rajavi and the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) held a meeting with several notable supporters including former New York

Photo by CSD of Rudolph Giuliani and Maryam Rajavi

Mayor and Republican Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani, former Vermont Governor and Democratic Presidential Candidate Howard Dean, former attorney general in the George W. Bush administration Michael Mucasey, and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s daughter Naomi Nontombi Tutu. Over the years, despite it cult-like practices and even when it was formally labeled a terrorist organization, the organization managed to acquire quite a list of high-profile ex-dignitaries in the United States.

I went to cover the event because I think the group may wind up playing a role of one sort and another helping to undermine American and European efforts to reach an agreement with Iran to forestall and foreclose its nuclear weapons capability.

There are several ways the MEK might do this.

It was listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization until last year for reasons outlined in this Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder. Despite official denials, it may yet try to use violence inside Iran to undermine the talks, knowing full well that any terrorist incidents will serve the hardliners in the regime and “exacerbate the contradictions,” as leftist revolutionaries used to say. When Iranian scientists have been killed, suspicion often has fallen on the MEK, the Israelis, or both.

The MEK claims to have extensive intelligence resources on the ground in Iran and claims credit for the important revelation in 2002 of the regime’s secret nuclear program, although there has been extensive speculation that the actual intelligence was supplied to the MEK by the Israelis. Its ability to float information — or disinformation — about the regime’s activities could complicate debate inside the United States.

To the extent the MEK claims credit for adding to the pressure on the Iranian government to negotiate it strengthens the hand of those inside Iran who want to discredit the negotiators.

But its greatest disruptive ability at the moment may well be connected to the way the Iranian-backed government of Iraq has treated MEK members in various camps there. On September 1 this year, 52 of them were killed, allegedly by special forces from the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, and seven (six of them women) are alleged to have been taken hostage.

Why the Iraqi government would do this, even with prodding from the Iranians, is something of a mystery. One obvious possibility would be revenge: the MEK sided with the mullahs to overthrow the shah, then attempted, and failed, to take over the revolution; it subsequently blew up scores of top Iranian religious leaders, and after Saddam Hussein invaded Iran it sided with his forces. More than 20 years later, when the United States led the invasion of Iraq to overthrow Saddam, the MEK still supported him. But U.S. forces decided its members might be used in some way as a card in future negotiations with Iran and the more than 3,000 MEK members in Iraq were put in a camp, disarmed, and began an existence in legal, political and diplomatic limbo. As the United States withdrew from Iraq in 2011, fears mounted that the government of Prime Minister Maliki would simply ship the Iranian MEK members across the border to face the tender mercies of the government in Tehran.

That did not happen. Instead their camp at Ashraf was closed after a violent incursion by Iraqi forces and they were sent to Camp Liberty on the outskirts of Baghdad (although they are still referred to by the MEK as “Ashrafis,” which is why in my tweets there were some references to killings at Camp Ashraf that were in fact at Camp Liberty).

The United States and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees assured the Ashrafis that they would be resettled in other countries, but that process has been very slow and one of the few countries willing to accept them even temporarily for medical care has been Albania. The camp came under repeated mortar attacks, and then came the September 1 killings and abductions.

Giuliani, Dean and others who worked to get the MEK “delisted” from the State Department’s catalogue of foreign terrorist organizations were involved to some extent in the assurances given the MEK that they would be protected at Camp Liberty and relocated in a timely fashion.

Giuliani argued yesterday that the issue of the Ashrafis and the nuclear negotiations should be linked, something the Obama administration is very unlikely to do. Dean claimed that failure to protect the Ashrafis dishonored the United States of America.

Following are my live tweets from the meeting:

http://christopherdickey.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-mujahadeen-e-khalq-mek-and.html?spref=fb

Award-winning author Christopher Dickey is the Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East Regional Editor for The Daily Beast. Chris’s nonfiction books include “Securing the City,” a New York Times Book Review notable book in 2009; “Summer of Deliverance,” his memoir about his father, poet and novelist James Dickey; “Expats,” about Westerners in the modern Arab and Muslim world; and “With the Contras,” a first-hand account of combat in Central American wars. He is also the author of two acclaimed thrillers: “Innocent Blood” and “The Sleeper.” Before moving to Newsweek, Chris worked for The Washington Post as Cairo Bureau Chief and Mexico City Bureau Chief. Chris’s columns about counter-terrorism, espionage and the Middle East appear on The Daily Beast. Links to most recent columns and articles are posted on The Shadowland Journal, and also on the archive at ChristopherDickey.com.

Christopher Dickey, The Shadowland Journal

December 10, 2013 0 comments

Iraq

Iraq says no success tracing killers of Iranian dissidents

Iraq is hunting militants, still unidentified, who led a deadly attack on an Iranian dissident camp near Baghdad and dismisses suggestions its own security forces were behind the violence, a senior government official said.

More than 50 people were killed at the dissident Mujahadin-e-Khalq (MEK) group’s Camp Ashraf in September in an attack the United Nations described as “an atrocious crime” and which drew condemnation from the United States and Britain. Assailants took time to conduct execution-style killings and plant bombs.

MEK, which the U.S. State Department removed from its list of terrorist organisations last year, wants Iran’s clerical leaders overthrown and fought on former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s side during the Iran-Iraq war in 1980s.

The group, which has accused Iraqi security forces of being behind the attack, is no longer welcome in Iraq under the Shi’ite Muslim-led government that came to power after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam in 2003.

“The main thing that the investigations have revealed so far is that the Iraqi security forces were not involved in that attack and an unknown militant group was behind it,” said Haider al-Akaili, who is part of a government committee overseeing the investigation, which was demanded by the U.N.

Iraqi authorities have repeatedly denied involvement in the attack, in which camp residents also went missing. MEK says they were taken hostage by Iraqi forces and were flown to Amara province to be extradited to Iran.

Akaili, who is an official in Iraq’s Ministry of Human Rights, denied this: “Pictures of the alleged missing persons have been circulated to airports and checkpoints and we have not received any news about any of them,” he told Reuters.

The committee is headed by Iraq’s national security chief and includes representatives from government ministries and the intelligence service as well as the U.N.

Akaili added that 53 people had been killed, not 52 as originally reported by the U.N. which said its representatives had seen corpses with gunshot wounds and some with their hands tied. The additional victim had not been reported until now because his face had been burnt and he had not been previously identifiable as a camp member, Akaili said.

The last residents moved out of the camp to a new base in September. The camp had housed around 100 MEK members at the time of the attack.

Iraqi authorities have issued 148 arrest warrants for MEK members for crimes against Iraqis since 1991 but none have been arrested, according to officials.

The group which attacked the camp appeared to have had ample time to execute the victims as well as plant bombs in cars and buildings which it detonated remotely, Akaili said.

“The operation was elaborate, complicated and big,” he said, adding that MEK members who had seen the attack had shown a “serious lack” of cooperation with investigating authorities.

He raised the possibility that there had been a dispute within the camp and some of the attackers had come from inside it. Another scenario was that the seven missing people were behind the assault, he said.

MEK numbered 4,174 members in Iraq up to 2003. The U.N. has resettled some 1,000 while 1,600 have declined to meet with officials, Akaili said. The rest are being resettled.

Suadad al-Salhy , Editing by Sylvia Westall; editing by Ralph Boulton

November 27, 2013 0 comments

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