Iraq leadership could seek U.S. help to eject Iranian guerrillas

Associated Press
December 12, 2003
BY: JIM KRANE

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Top U.S. and Iraqi officials will discuss how to expel an anti-Iran paramilitary group with links to the former regime of Saddam Hussein.

As part of those discussions, the Iraqi Governing Council, the nation's interim authority, might ask the U.S. military to expel the Mujahedeen Khalq from Iraq, Iraqi officials said Friday. But the council has no plans to hand them over to Iran, where they are wanted for alleged terrorist attacks.

The Coalition Provisional Authority, which is governing Iraq, will meet Governing Council members to discuss the removal of the paramilitary organization, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said. He did not say whether the U.S. military would forcibly eject the Mujahedeen Khalq.

"We and the Governing Council and most Iraqis agree that the Mujahedeen Khalq is a terrorist organization and needs to be dealt with as such," the official said.

Earlier this week, the U.S.-appointed council decided to expel by year's end the 3,800 members of the Mujahedeen Khalq, listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.

"We might ask the Americans because they have the military capabilities," Governing Council member Dara Noor al-Din said. "We don't have an army and the police force isn't well enough equipped to face the Mujahedeen, because they have light weapons."

The group was disarmed by U.S. forces and is currently being held inside its camp northeast of Baghdad. Mujahedeen members at the camp said they were prohibited by the U.S. military from speaking with the press.

The Mujahedeen Khalq has for years sought to topple Iran's clerical government and kept an army in Iraq. During Saddam's rule, its fighters are believed to have taken part in campaigns to suppress dissent among the country's Kurdish and Shiite Muslim communities.

The coalition briefer said he had no information on speculation that the group might be bartered away in a swap between the United States and Iran. Such a deal would hand the Mujahedeen Khalq to Tehran in exchange for members of al-Qaida in Iranian custody.

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has urged Tehran to detain and hand over al-Qaida members in Iran. In October, Bush said it would improve Iranian-U.S. relations "if we end up reaching an agreement on the al-Qaida that they hold."

Officials in the U.S. Department of State have criticized U.S. defense officials for agreeing to a wartime cease-fire with the Mujahedeen Khalq, after initially bombing the group's base during the war. Some members of the U.S. Congress have commended the Mujahedeen for battling the Iranian clerical regime, and the Pentagon is thought to be more sympathetic to its goals than the State Department.

Recently, however, the United States appears to have taken a harder line against the group, and Iraqi Governing Council members - eager to mend ties with Iran - seem ready to dispose of a band of fighters whose presence has become an embarrassment.

Still, the Governing Council has no plans to hand the group to Tehran.

"They can choose their own destination. We've given them sufficient time to gather their stuff and leave the country," said Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi.