Iran military chief demands US extradite Mojahedin Leader

Iran military chief demands US extradite Mojahedin Leader
Agence France Presse
April 21, 2003

TEHRAN, April 21 (AFP) - The head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards on Monday demanded the US extradite the head of the Iraq-based People’s Mojahedin to show it is sincere in combating terrorism, IRNA reported.

"We know that the US has listed the MKO as a terrorist organization, so in order to prove it is sincere in the war against terrorism, the US has to hand over the Mojahedin’s leader to us," the official news agency quoted Yahya Rahim Safavi as saying.

"Since the US has trapped them and until the time the US hands them over to us, anything they (theMojahedin) do against Iran, the US bears responsibility," he added.

US-led forces in Iraq have targeted several Mojahedin camps and are trying to negotiate the group’s surrender. However the whereabouts of the group’s leader, Massoud Rajavi, is unclear.

The People’s Mojahedin has been labeled a terrorist organization by Iran, the United States and the European Union, although it says it targets only the military and other elements of Tehran’s clerical regime.

The group was given sanctuary by now deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 1986, when he was in the thick of a bloody war with his neighbor, after it was driven out of Iran in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution.