The case of Ashcroft and the MKO shows just how murky fighting terrorism can sometimes get. State Department officials first designated the MKO a”foreign terrorist organization”in 1997, accusing the Baghdad-based group of a long series of bombings, guerilla cross-border raids and targeted assassinations of Iranian leaders. Officials say the MKO aka PMOI–which originally fought to overthrow the Shah of Iran–was linked to the murder of several U.S. military officers and civilians in Iran in the 1970s.”They have an extremely bloody history,”says one U.S. counterterrorism official

After bombing MEK bases in the opening days of the Iraq invasion in March 2003, the U.S. military worked out a cease-fire agreement that resulted in the group’s surrender of its heavy weapons and the concentration of about 4,000 of their members, some of whom have since repatriated voluntarily to Iran, at their base at Ashraf. …Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice assured Europeans on her trip this past week that Washington does indeed support the efforts of France, Britain, and Germany (EU-3) to reach a diplomatic settlement on the issue. However, she also made it clear that Washington has no interest in joining them at the negotiating table or extending much in the way of carrots.

At a ceremony last week, an Iranian mother hugged her son, one of 31 returning combatants who had spent time at a military camp in Iraq….More than 250 young Iranians, from a group committed to toppling Iran’s leaders(MKO), are back in Tehran..The journey of one of those sons, Hamid Khalkali, is typical: He went to Turkey five years ago for work, but ended up at a military training camp in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. He was recruited by the Mujahideen-e Khalq..

FBI investigators said they had arrested seven members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, a group dedicated to overthrowing the Iranian government. The organization is included on the U.S. State Department’s list of designated terrorist organizations. In recent years, its National Liberation Army has taken credit for armed raids on Iran from bases in neighboring Iraq.

The formerly armed Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) has been based in Iraq for twenty years with regime change as its exclusive cause. Not only was it a long term irritant for Iran, launching waves of terrorist attacks from across the border, it also waged a remarkably intensive “ albeit unsophisticated “ anti-Iranian propaganda campaign from major Western capitals. It was a tempting prospect for hawks in the U.S. administration, therefore, to use the MKO“ officially classified a terrorist organization by the U.S. and EU governments “ as a tool

name that sent shivers down the back of any Iraqi, was in front of me and I, with over twenty one years history of serving the Mojahedin organization, had to start a new existence in this prison and wait for the leadership of the organization, especially Maryam, the sensual wife of Massoud Rajavi, to decide in what way they will eliminate me.

Human Rights Watch Report on the terrorist cult of Mujahedin-e-Khalq

One morning, at 11 o’clock I went to the bus station. The first bus to Iran was supposed to leave at 2 pm. So during these hours while I was wondering around the station desperately I ran into a man called Saeed. He invited me to walk with him, and glad to see an Iranian, I narrated my adventures for him. Saeed abused my misery and offered me a job. ..