Iraqi official: Iran planning to pin my assassination on PMOI

Sunday, 24 February 2008

NCRI - Mohammad Mesbah al-Waeli, governor of southern Iraqi province of Basra, revealed in a press conference on Thursday that Iranian regime is planning to assassinate him and his brother and blaming it on the main Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI /MEK).

“The Iranian consulate in Basra informed a leader of our movement (Fazilat party) of a plot to assassinate my brother and I by the PMOI in Iraq,” reported Elaph Arabic language website from Al-Waeli’s conference.

“The PMOI is not present in Basra. It is a message from the assassins that the plan would be carried out blaming it on the PMOI,” added al-Waeli.


Al-Waeli called on the Iraqi officials to shut down the Iranian consulate in Basra.

“I believe that abundant information about the intelligence activities of the local agents of the Iranian security forces have been brought to the attention of the Iraqi officials, including that of the Iranian consulate in Basra.

“I hold the Iranian consulate responsible for any future attampts on my life and that of my brother’s,” said Al-Waeli in an interview with Al-Arabiya television network.

Tehran’s demonizing campaign against its main opposition is common knowledge.

After the criminal bombing of the holy shrine of Imam Reza (the eighth Shiite Imam) in the northeastern city of Mashad in 1994, in which dozens of innocent pilgrims were killed, the clerical regime’s leaders immediately blamed the PMOI for that terrorist attack.

The same year, after murdering three Christian priests, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry accused the PMOI of the killings.

Several years later, the clerical regime’s officials acknowledged that the heinous crimes had been perpetrated by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).