Iraq wants Iranian opposition group out by year's end

Associated Press
December 9, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S.-picked Governing Council unanimously decided Tuesday to expel Iran's opposition Mujahedeen Khalq group from Iraq by the end of the year.

A statement by the 25-seat council said Mujahedeen members should be out of Iraq by the end of the year and that the group's offices in Iraq will be closed.

The Mujahedeen Khalq has for years sought to topple Iran's clerical government and kept an army in Iraq. The group is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. Its army was disarmed by U.S. forces in Iraq soon after major hostilities in the U.S.-led war ended May 1.

During Saddam Hussein's rule, Mujahedeen Khalq fighters are believed to have taken part in some of Saddam's campaigns to suppress dissent among the country's Kurdish and Shiite Muslim communities.

The council said its decision was made because of "the black history of this terrorist organization and for the crimes it had committed against our people and our neighbors."

It also said it was confiscating money and weapons belonging to the organization, placing the money in a fund that would be used to compensate "victims of the bygone fascist regime."

Iraqi individuals and institutions are free to sue the Iranian opposition group "for crimes against the Iraqi people and demand compensation from its funds inside and outside Iraq," the council said.