In a Delicate Balancing Act, U.S. Woos Iranian Group in Iraq

In a Delicate Balancing Act, U.S. Woos Iranian Group in Iraq

Washington Post
November 9, 2003
By Karl Vick

KHALIS, Iraq -- Listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and bombed by U.S. warplanes during Operation Iraqi Freedom, the armed Iranian opposition group known as People's Mujaheddin remains in its customary quarters about 50 miles north of Baghdad. The sprawling, dun-colored compound is named Camp Ashraf, and the 3,800 men and women inside are technically prisoners of the United States.

But it's not entirely clear who's in charge there, as quickly became evident one recent day when a car rolled to a stop at the main gate.

The driver was approached by a slender, bespectacled man in green fatigues who identified himself as Mohammad Hassan, an officer of the mujaheddin. After asking whom the driver came to see, Hassan phoned to confirm the appointment with another mujaheddin official inside the compound. The barrier was then lifted by a mujaheddin sentry who emerged from one of three tidy guard trailers.

In the shade under camouflage netting, three U.S. soldiers watched the encounter. "They challenge, we don't," explained one.

"No, we are not prisoners," said Hassan, smiling mischievously. "Why would we be prisoners?"

The scene reflects the confusion and ambiguity that the People's Mujaheddin, or MEK, inspires here and in Washington six months after the group's longtime patron, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, was toppled from power.

Inside Iraq, the mujaheddin are regarded as Hussein's private army. The Iraqi dictator gave the Iranian group Camp Ashraf and a half-dozen other installations around Iraq. He equipped them with tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers.

In 1991, when Iraq's Shiite Muslim and Kurdish populations answered the call of then-President George H.W. Bush to rise up and overthrow Hussein, mujaheddin tanks rode to the dictator's rescue. The Iranian exiles opened fire on Kurds and blocked roads leading south, where Hussein's remaining regular forces had their hands full with the Shiites.

"They were worse than the Iraqi army, because they weren't Iraqis," said Muhsim Ali Akbar, a Kurdish official in Khanaqin, where the mujaheddin sent tanks. "They didn't care."

"In 1991 they killed three army deserters who had returned to their families. The MEK feared they would start a rebellion, so they shot them," said Mustafa Hamid Azawi, a resident of Khalis, a majority-Shiite town that mujaheddin armor surrounded.

"The people here think the Americans are protecting the mujaheddin to use them against Iran the way Saddam used them against the Iraqi people," Azawi said. "Everyone says this."

Indeed, for some U.S. officials, whatever the mujaheddin did in Iraq may be of less importance than what it wants to do in its native Iran. The group, which supported the 1979 Islamic revolution against Iran's monarchy, soon split with the country's Islamic government and fled Iran in the early 1980s. During its 17 years in Iraq, the group -- supported by fund-raisers abroad and an influential Washington lobby -- also mounted intermittent if largely ineffectual military forays across the border into Iran.

Now, as the Bush administration wrestles with the question of what to do about Iran, some argue for putting the mujaheddin to use again.

"The problem is they're still labeled as terrorists, even though we both know they're not," said Sgt. William Sutherland, explaining why a reporter could not enter Camp Ashraf. "Much as I'd like to go and do a story myself on how they're not terrorists -- rather, they're patriots -- it's not going to happen until they get put on the green list."

The administration is divided along familiar lines over the mujaheddin, much as it is over policy toward Tehran.

The State Department has shown little sympathy for the mujaheddin since adding the group to its official list of terrorist organizations in 1999. The citation noted the assassination of a half-dozen U.S. military advisers in Iran during the 1970s. Last month, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell wrote Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to remind the Pentagon that the mujaheddin's forces in Iraq are supposed to be U.S. captives, not allies.

At Camp Ashraf, however, U.S. soldiers idling in the chalky dust outside the compound said they were uncertain even whether they were guards. "It's kind of hard to say," said a sergeant who declined to give his name.

Do prisoners invite guards over for dinner? The mujaheddin hosted a banquet for the Americans, laying out a spread of chicken and French fries after showing off a new museum dedicated to the history of their struggle.

That history confused Cpl. Sandro Navarro. The tank gunner from Bloomington, Calif., said he grasped the group's opposition to Iran's theocratic government but not its alliance with Hussein.

"It's kind of weird how in a dictatorship these people were trying to fight for a totally different cause," said Navarro. "That's why I just say, 'I hope your goals and desires are met.' And behind the dark scenes, who knows what's going on?"

In nearby Khalis, residents express the same confusion. Under Hussein's rule, said Mustafa Khidr, "they used to go around town like bullies" in Toyota trucks that Iraqis learned to give a wide berth. Now those trucks travel without a heavy machine gun mounted in the back, but they are always escorted by at least one American Humvee.

"If the Americans were to step aside, the local population would attack them," said Abdulrahman Abdulmehdi. "This is for sure, because they killed many people."

In the final days of the war, U.S. Special Forces did call in airstrikes on mujaheddin positions north of Baghdad. Analysts attributed the strikes to a combination of genuine concern about the mujaheddin's battlefield potential and a gentleman's agreement struck with Iranian officials in the run-up to the war. Iran agreed to passively support the U.S. campaign against Hussein -- a sworn enemy of Iran -- but asked that the mujaheddin be disposed of. In return, Iran agreed to overlook violations of its airspace, including rescue of American pilots who might parachute into Iran.

But after several U.S. airstrikes, mujaheddin commanders negotiated a truce with the Pentagon. The terms allowed the mujaheddin to keep their armor for almost a month, at a time when other armed groups in Iraq were being immediately separated from their weapons, prompting speculation that the Bush administration saw potential in what Iraqis regard as a mercenary force.

The fate of the group is being watched closely by Iran, whose government is split between reformers and hard-line conservatives. Both factions have warned repeatedly that Washington's actions toward the mujaheddin will demonstrate the sincerity of the Bush administration's war on terrorism. Some Iranian officials privately say their government cannot surrender senior al Qaeda figures currently detained in Iran unless at least mujaheddin leaders are returned there.

The neighbors in Iraq are curious, too. A steady stream of civilians arrives at the Ashraf gate each day, many asking what the mujaheddin have for sale. For reasons that only deepen the mystery surrounding the future of the group, it has taken to auctioning stoves, refrigerators -- and even cars.

"No, no cars today," said Sheik Kadhan Hussein Ali, walking away from the Ashraf gate the other day. He had traveled about 30 miles hoping for a bargain, and though disappointed, said he would come again.

"They are selling their cars because they hope the Americans will provide them with new cars," Ali said. "Yes. They told me."