EU, US team up to help MKO terrorists

The European parliament and the US appear to be teaming up to garner support for the blacklisted Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorists and prevent their expulsion from Iraq.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/213073.html

Member of the European Parliament Struan Stevenson, who heads the panel for ties with Iraq, said Wednesday that EU members must denounce the deadline imposed by the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to close Camp Ashraf by the end of 2011. He went on to claim that the Iraqi government is planning to attack Camp Ashraf and “massacre the residents,” AP reported.

The Iraqi government has made clear its plans to close down the notorious Camp Ashraf, located about 120 kilometers (74 miles) west of the border with Iran, which hosts about 3,500 MKO terrorists, before US troops pull-out by the end of the year. Members of the terrorist Organization will be then moved elsewhere in Iraq in order to reassert Iraqi sovereignty over the land where Camp Ashraf is located.

This is while on November 27, the US government announced it is mulling removing the anti-Iran organization from its terrorist blacklist and giving refuge to its members, a move which many believe is an indication of Washington's support for terrorism.

According to The New York Times, former CIA directors James Woolsey and Porter Goss together with former FBI director Louis Freeh are among those lobbying President Barack Obama to delist the MKO from the US terrorist list.

The MKO is designated as a terrorist organization under United States law, and has been described by State Department officials as a repressive cult. The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it enjoyed the support of Iraq's executed dictator Saddam Hussein, and set up camp in Diyala Province, near the Iranian border.

MKO is also known to have cooperated with Saddam in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds. The group has carried out numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials. Iran has repeatedly called on the Iraqi government to expel the group, but the US has blocked the expulsion by mounting pressure on the Iraqi government.

Many believe that the recent EP discussion regarding the prevention of the closure of Camp Ashraf, signals European countries are moving towards aligning themselves with US anti-Iran policies.

It also suggests that while Western countries accuse Iran of supporting terrorism, they are taking more practical steps to harbor terrorists and will stop at nothing in their enmity with the Islamic Republic even blatantly supporting an internationally-recognized terrorist cell such as the MKO.