Dabbagh Says Iranian Group Must Leave Iraq

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Feb 18, 2007

BAGHDAD - … Iraqi cabinet spokesman Ali al-Dabagh said the government regarded the Iranian Khalq opposition group, which Iraq harboured during former President Saddam Hussein's reign, as 'a terrorist' group.

Al-Dabagh said that the group should be forced to leave since 'the constitution forbids the presence of any organization that is engaged in or supports in terrorism in the Iraqi territories.'

Less than a month before Al-Dabagh's comments, a Khalq spokeswoman had told pan-Arab al-Sharq al-Awsat that the group's faction in Iraq, which lives in a camp east of Baghdad, has stopped its activities.

'We only have around 4,000 men, women and children who reside in Ashraf camp near Diyali,' Dawla Norouzi said, adding: 'We respect the Iraqi government.'

Norouzi said that Khalq activities in Iraq were reduced to 'cultural and educational' activities.

Khalq has been struggling against the Iranian regime for more than two decades.

Iran, 'a very serious threat'

United Press International
February 14, 2007
By Claude SALHANI

Iran today poses a five-pronged threat, warned the man who first blew the whistle on the Islamic republic's nuclear program. Iran is "a very, very serious threat to the free world," said Alireza Jafarzadeh, who outlines the dangers posed by the Islamic republic, as he sees them, in his new book, "The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the coming nuclear crisis."

"Iran wants to extend its influence beyond its borders," said Jafarzadeh.

"The agenda of Ayatollah Khomeini was to establish global Islamic rule, to expand Iran's influence beyond the Iranian borders. They want to deliver Jerusalem via Karbala, meaning to turn Iraq into an Islamic republic and from there use it as a springboard to spread their revolution to other countries in the area," he said.

The author, who is close to the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, was the first person to reveal the Islamic republic's secret nuclear processing sites at Natanz and Arak.

On Iran's role in Iraq, Jafarzadeh wrote: "The problem in Iraq is neither a civil nor a sectarian war. The main threat to Iraq is neither al-Qaida nor the Sunni insurgents -- they both are cause for major problems, but neither can take the whole future of Iraq as a hostage. Rather, Iraq is now a battleground for the clash of two alternatives: Islamic extremist opinion which gets its orders from Tehran and seeks to establish an Islamic republic in Iraq, and a democratic alternative seeking a pluralistic democracy in the country. The former seeks sectarian violence and fans the flames of civil war while the latter seeks to ease tension, provide security and stability and establish democratic institutions."

Outlining those threats, Jafarzadeh, an Iranian exile who lives in Washington, underlined the five prongs followed by the regime in Tehran.

First: Iran wants to pursue its nuclear program, come what may. Iran is cognizant of the facts possession of nuclear weapons puts it in a different category altogether. The regime in Tehran believes that nuclear weapons will offer it protection from a potential invasion by the United States. Indeed, Washington is likely to think twice about waging war on a country that is armed with nuclear weapons.

Second: Iran's meddling in Iraq. Since the start of the Iranian revolution in 1979, Khomeini wanted to export the Islamic revolution to neighboring countries, particularly Iraq, Bahrain and Kuwait, who have important Shiite minorities. But try as they did, Iran's mullahs were unsuccessful until the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 offered the Iranians a unique opportunity to intervene in Iraq's internal affairs. Immediately after the fall of Baghdad to the U.S.-led coalition, Iranian Revolutionary Guards profited from the fact that Iraq's 900-mile border with Iran was largely unguarded as the Iraqi army was, first, on the retreat, and, second, disbanded by order of the U.S. administrator of Iraq. Iranian forces therefore immediately began to cross into Iraq and began supporting anti-American and anti-coalition forces.

Iranian agents started training Iraqis in insurgency tactics and, according to several sources, Iran has provided training, financing and explosives and weapons to the insurgency.

Third: Iran's support of international terrorism. The United States accuses the Tehran regime of supporting terrorist groups, or groups considered to be terrorists by the United States. Iran, says Jafarzadeh, poses a serious threat to the world by its support of terrorism. The Islamic republic has long been a supporter of groups such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, or the Islamic resistance movement in the Palestinian territories, better known as Hamas.

Fourth: Iran continues to oppose the Middle East peace process. However, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does nothing to encourage peace in the Middle East with his repeated claims that "Israel should be wiped off the map," and persists with his insistence that the "Holocaust never happened.

Needless to say, this has raised concern, not only in Israel, but in the United States and Western countries that a nuclear-armed Iran will only make matters worse. Jafarzadeh writes: For 27 years, the Iranian regime has voiced its hatred of the United States and the West, and for the same number of years attempts have been made to change the regime's behavior through external pressures, threats, negotiations and appeasement. All these attempts have the failed, and as the Iranian regime accelerates its push for a nuclear arsenal, the world no longer has the luxury of waiting for Tehran to turn itself around and shed its medieval mindset. The Iranian regime was not budged from its original theme of hating the West and working to export its Islamic revolution. "Ignoring this will only further step up Tehran's rush to the bomb," Jafarzadeh said.

And five: The way Iran treats its own citizens. The mistreatment of women, abuse of human rights, censorship and executions continue to preoccupy human rights groups and Iranians struggling and hoping to see democracy blossom in their country.

MEPs in support of Ashraf City

Friday, 09 February 2007

NCRI - The Friends of a Free Iran parliamentary inter-group has released this declaration:

The trip to Iran by Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, who heads the Iranian regime's operativesin Iraq, and his meetings with the clerical regime's leaders, particularly Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has aroused concern among all those hoping for peace and democracy in Iraq. This visit and several other private and public visits are a sign of the mullahs' greater terrorist and fundamentalist meddling in Iraq.

One objective of Al-Hakim and other Iranian agents in Iraq is to table a bill in the Iraqi Parliament to expel the People's Mojahedin (PMOI) from that country. To achieve this ominous objective, the regime is counting on the support of many members of the current Iraqi Parliament, among them officers and commanders of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Their names and particulars of were recently revealed in the list of 32,000 Iraqi agents on the Iranian regime's payroll.

It was also revealed in recent days that an Iraqi Parliament deputy, Jamal Ebrahimi,also known as Abu-Mohandes, was the commander of a terrorist network in Iraq and involved in many of the killings in that country. He was responsible for the bombing of the United States embassy in Kuwait in 1983. He has been in Iran for the past week (New York Times, February 7, 2007).

The IRGC's Qods Force and the Iranian embassy in Baghdad have deployed massive resources to enlist the vote of these deputies to give the expulsion of the PMOI from Iraq an aura of legality.

The IRGC's Javan daily quoted Adel Abdul Mehdi on February 1, as saying, "Iranian officials have told us that the Iraqi government must resolve the problem [of Mojahedin's presence in Iraq]."

The same day, Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said the PMOI has been given the option to "leave Iraqi territory as soon as possible." Two days later, AbdulAziz Al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said in a meeting with Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of Iran's State Expediency Council and former President, that members of the PMOI "must leave Iraq immediately."

Beha Al-Arjai, an Iranian operative in Iraq and head of the Iraqi Parliament's Committee of the Judiciary told Al-Arabiya that the government wants to pressure the United States regarding the PMOI case and that the US and its ambassador in Iraq must respect the decision of the Iraqi government.

By embarking on this extensive campaign, the Iranian regime is planning to remove the PMOI -- who, as the antithesis to fundamentalism, have played a crucial role in thwarting the export of fundamentalism and terrorism to Iraq -- from its path in order to complete its domination of Iraq and exert its hegemony on the whole of the Middle East region.

The pressures exerted on the PMOI come at a time when all Mojahedin members have been political refugees in Iraq for the past twenty years and enjoyed the protection of the Fourth Geneva Convention and international laws. Any expulsion or involuntary displacement of the PMOI members is tantamount to a war crime and a crime against humanity.

In this light, we ask the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament and all democratic forces in the institution to confront this conspiracy and not allow the mullahs' operatives to advance their criminal schemes under the name of the Iraqi Parliament. We also ask the US government and the Multi-National Force-Iraq to provide full protection to the PMOI members in Ashraf City.

• Dr Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Vice President of the European Parliament, Group of the European People's Party from Spain

• Manuel dos Santos, Vice President of the European Parliament & Member of the National Leadership of the Socialist Party of Portugal

• Struan Stevenson, Vice President of the Group of the European People's Party- European Democrats & Co-Chair of the Friends of a Free Iran Inter-group from the Scottish Conservative Party

• Paulo Casaca, MEP, Co-Chair of Friends of a Free Iran Inter Group from the Socialist Party of Portugal

• Tunne Kelam, MEP, Leader of Estonian Delegation in the Group of the European People's Party

• Professor Bernat Joan i Mari, MEP & Vice President of Africa Caribbean Pacific - European Union Joint Parliamentary Assembly from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance

• Piia-Noora Kauppi, MEP, Leader of Finnish Delegation in the Group of the European People's Party

• Dr Jaroslav Zverina, MEP , Group of the European People's Party from Czech Republic

• Dr Romana Jordan Cizelj, MEP, Group of the European People's Party from Slovania

• Erik Meijer, MEP, Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left & Member of Netherlands Socialist Party Executive

Iranian Resistance call for freedom of Mrs. Zahra Aliqoli a political prisoner in Iran

Friday, 09 February 2007

NCRI - The Iranian Resistance calls on all international women’s human rights organizations to try for freedom of a 62-year-old political prisoner, Mrs. Zahra Aliqoli who has been imprisoned in the mullahs’ regime’s dungeons since summer of 2006.

In previous years, she had been imprisoned and tortured by the regime twice. Mrs. Aliqoli’s poor health is of great concern in prison.

She has been tried by the mullahs’ judiciary on the charges of visiting her children in Ashraf City, home to the members of People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) in Iraq.

Mrs. Aliqoli’s daughter, Shahnaz Aliqoli was imprisoned by the regime for five years and later executed in 1988.

In 1981, she was arrested and imprisoned for the first time with her husband. In 1986, for second time, she was imprisoned and tortured severely by the regime’s henchmen.

The Iranian Resistance calls on all international human rights as well as women’s rights organizations to condemn the regime’s crimes and take urgent measures to save the life of Mrs. Aliqoli and other political prisoners in Iran.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 9, 2007

Clerical regime’s new conspiracy against the People’s Mojahedin in Iraq

February 07, 2007

NCRI - In retaliation for revelation of list of 32,000 Iraqi agents on the Iranian regime's payroll, Supreme Leader Khamenei summoned Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim and instructed him to carry out the plan in the Iraqi Parliament to expel the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) from Iraq.

Angry and fearful over the Iranian Resistance's revelation of the list of 32,000 Iraqi agents of the mullahs’ regime, the clerical regime's leaders have ordered their agents in Iraq to table an emergency bill in the Iraqi Parliament to expel the PMOI.

According to the information from within the clerical regime, in his recent meeting with Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Ali Khamenei ordered him to collect signatures from members of Shiite coalition affiliated with the Iranian regime in the Parliament to introduce a bill prior to the start of the Parliament’s winter holidays next week.

Assisted by the mullahs’ embassy in Baghdad, members the Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corps' (IRGC) Qods Force are in charge of implementing and pursuing this plot against the PMOI to secure sufficient votes in the Parliament to give the PMOI expulsion from Iraq an aura of legality.

The Iranian regime's assessment is that the new political development and the implementation of security plan for Baghdad would make it more difficult to expel the PMOI and that if this opportunity was lost, it might be lost forever.

During the visits to Iran by Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim and his deputy Adel-Abdul Mehdi, the leaders of the clerical regime demanded repeatedly and forcefully that action against the PMOI be expedited.

In reference to the regime’s demands for the expulsion of the PMOI, on February 1, 2007, the state-controlled daily, Javan, affiliated with the IRGC, quoted Abdul-Mehdi, who had visited Iran earlier, as saying, “Iranian officials told us that the Iraqi government should resolve this problem.”

The regime’s leaders ordered Al-Hakim and his deputy to do the following:
- Al-Maliki government should insist and exert pressure on US officials for expulsion of the PMOI as an irreversible demand
- In his negotiations with the Americans, Al-Maliki should pretend as though the presence of the PMOI is an obstacle to the implementation of the security plan in Baghdad. He must insist that as long as the status of the PMOI in Iraq is not settled, he would not carry out Baghdad’s security plan.

To this effect, Baha Al-Arji, one of the Iranian regime’s notorious agents, told the Al-Arabiya satellite television network that similar to Baghdad's security plan, which the Iraqi government is trying to wrest its control from the Americans, officials must exert pressure on the Americans to settle the case of the PMOI.

His explicit remarks make it clear that the expulsion of the PMOI from Iraq and exerting pressure on Americans toward that end has been dictated by the clerical regime in order to remove the obstacles to its domination of Iraq.

Last week, the principal patriotic and democratic Iraqi forces and currents, including the Accord Front, the Front for Dialogue, and the Council for National Dialogue as well as tribal leaders and Iraqi jurists voiced protest over the regime’s new campaign against the PMOI and condemned it as a new phase in the mullahs' meddling in Iraqi affairs.

It is worthy of note that several members of the Iraqi Parliament are representatives of the list of the Shiite Coalition affiliated with the Iranian regime. They are among IRGC officers and commanders, whose names and particulars, their code numbers and salaries were revealed in the list of 32,000 Iraqi agents of the Iranian regime.

A month earlier, the Iranian Resistance exposed a mullahs' terrorist network in Iraq, whose commander is an agent of the Iranian regime, named Abu-Mohandes. He is a deputy in the Iraqi Parliament from the list of the Shiite Coalition affiliated to the mullahs' regime.

The Iranian Resistance recalls international conventions and international laws according to which members of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran in Iraq enjoy legal presence and status. It also warns of the clerical regime's new conspiracy and expansionist plans. It urges international and human rights organizations to protest against the new ploy by the Iranian regime which could lead to a humanitarian catastrophe and criminal actions against protected persons and violate their rights.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 7, 2007

“I would like to praise Iraqi people for their support to the people’s Mojahedin of Iran” (MEP)

February 03, 2007

NCRI – “I would like to praise Iraqi people for their support to the Mojahedin and the City of Ashraf. The regime's fear of Ashraf displays the role of Ashraf in preventing the infiltration of fundamentalism into Iraq,” said Mogens Camre, Danish member of the European parliament in a conference on “Iraq with a future” on January 31, attended by a delegation of Iraqi political personalities and MPs, and Mohammad Mohaddessin, President of the NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee. Here is the text of his speech:

On behalf of "Friends of a Free Iran" in the European Parliament I would like to welcome all of you and in particular our dear guests from Iraq. I heard you had some very good meetings yesterday in the European Parliament.

"Friends of a Free Iran Inter-Parliamentary group" has a widespread membership among Euro MPs. Several Vice Presidents in the European Parliament and many senior members in our Parliaments from different countries are amongst the members of our inter-parliamentary group. I am a Danish Politician and I am also the vice President of one of the political groups in the European Parliament. We focus on Iran but we are strongly opposed to the Iranian regime's meddling in Iraq. We believe that the main problem in Iraq is Islamic fundamentalism which is being exported by the mullahs in Iran.

I would like to praise our Iraqi guests for their presence here because this is a strong display of their resolve to stand against the mullahs' interferences in Iraq. This is particularly important as they represent different sections of the Iraqi society. We in the European Parliament are firmly with you.

We in the European Parliament also support firmly the National Council of Resistance of Iran and the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran for their struggle against the mullahs' regime. For many years we declared that the terrorist label against the Iranian Mojahedin had no basis and no legitimacy and it was simply a political move.

Fortunately the European Court of Justice endorsed our position and its ruling in last December ( 12 December ) showed that the terror designation of the Mojahedin was unlawful right from the beginning.

I would like to thank the National Council of Resistance and the Mojahedin for their role in exposing the Iranian regime's meddling in Iraq. They were the first ones to unveil the regime's nuclear programs as they were the first ones to uncover the criminal role of the Qods ( or so called Jerusalem) force in Iraq. The Mojahedin released the names of the regime's agents in Iraq and exposed their terrorist plots. They have done a great service to humanity.

I would also like to praise Iraqi people for their support to the Mojahedin and the City of Ashraf. The regime's fear of Ashraf displays the role of Ashraf in preventing the infiltration of fundamentalism into Iraq.

On behalf of the European Parliament I would like to thank you for your support to the Mojahedin and Ashraf City. This is a major contribution to democracy in Iran and a great help to salvage Iraq. I hope Iraq will have peace and stability in near future.
Thank you.

A reply to Iraqi government’s spokesman assertions

February 2, 2007

NCRI - In previous days, the revelations of the list of names of 32,000 salaried agents of the mullahs' regime in Iraq, which received extensive coverage, leaders democratic and nationalist Iraqi parties and forces visited Brussels and exposed the Iranian regime's crimes in Iraq and declared solidarity with the Iranian Resistance.

Subsequently, the Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said in a press conference, “This organization [People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI)] in Iraq is an illegitimate and illegal organization. On July 19, 2006, the cabinet ordered that the issue of ending the presence of this organization in a specified period of time be pursued by a ministerial cabinet, headed by the Minister of the Interior… They were given the opportunity to find residence in another country other than Iraq. They have been given the freedom of choice to return to their own country or to any country that would accept them."

To justify the unlawful demand, Dabbagh has absurdly charged, “the [PMOI] and it members violate Iraqi laws by contacting Iraqi officials. This is not allowed.”

Dabbagh’s anger and frustration over the revelations of the list of Iraqi agents on Tehran's payroll in Iraq is quite understandable since he knows full well that the names of senior government officials for which he is the spokesman and the names of thousands of Iraqi police and army officers appear in the list.

It goes without saying that Dabbagh’s remarks carried no legal credibility. The PMOI members’ presence in Iraq is consistent with the international laws and not based on directives dictated by the regime in Tehran. The legitimacy and legality of the PMOI members' residence in Iraq is based on Geneva Conventions, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention and their refugee status according to the United Nations 1967 declaration and the basic principles of international law, particularly the principle of non-refoulement. All international organizations and the Multi-National Force-Iraq have accepted this principle, which prohibits any involuntary displacement of the PMOI.

On December 10, 2003, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, then head of the now-defunct Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) gave the PMOI three months to leave Iraqi territory. That turned into a major scandal and disgrace for al-Hakim.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 2, 2007

Iraq's government want Iranian opposition group out of the country

Associated Press
February 1, 2008

BAGHDAD, Iraq: The Iraqi government wants members of an Iranian opposition group to leave the country because it is a "terrorist organization" and the Iraqi constitution bans hosting such movements, chief spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Thursday.

Al-Dabbagh said members of the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, or Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, have been told they must go to Iran "or any other country" and should "arrange their residence in a country other than Iraq."

"The Cabinet affirms that the legal character of this organization is a terrorist organization," al-Dabbagh said during a news conference. "We in Iraq have enough problems and we are passing through difficult circumstances. The constitution affirms that terrorist organizations should not be hosted."

He said a joint committee including representatives of the U.S., Iraq and the Mujahedeen had been established to arrange for the group's departure. He gave no deadline for them to leave.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said in July he would ban the organization, which opposes the cleric-dominated government in Tehran, from distributing statements and would restrict its fighters from leaving their camp in eastern Iraq, which was established during the rule of the late President Saddam Hussein.

At the time, al-Maliki said the group's legal status would be reviewed. The U.S. also considers the Peoples Mujahedeen a terrorist organization.

Al-Dabbagh's comments came amid rising tension between the United States and Iran and weeks after the Iraqi government told the two countries to solve their problems away from Iraq's territories.

The United States has accused Iran of aiding extremist groups that attack U.S. forces in Iraq. In the past two months U.S. troops have detained eight Iranians in Baghdad and the northern city of Irbil. Five of them are still in U.S. custody.

The People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran has thousands of members in Iraq, most of them in Camp Ashraf in the eastern Diyala province that borders Iran.

Dozens of others have been stranded on the Iraq-Jordan border for years. The organization was founded in the late 1960s and fled to Iraq in the early 1980s after it fell out with the clerical regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. During Saddam Hussein's rule, the movement used Iraq as a base for operations against Iran's government.