Some Mujahidin-i Khalq Terrorists to be Tried in Iraq

The Mujahidin-i Khalq terrorist organization, which has committed mass murder in Iran, was given refuge in Iraq by Saddam Hussein, who used the group's guerrillas to harass Iran. Iraqis claim that at key points the MKO helped Saddam stay in power by military action. The Coalition Provisional Authority has decided to deport MKO members for Iraq to "three countries," but will not say to which. But AFP reports that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and December's president of the Interim Governing Council has said that some MKO members guilty of terrorism will be tried in Iraq. Al-Hakim was given refuge in Tehran from Saddam in the early 1980s and was close to the hard line ayatollahs in Tehran, who view the Mujahidin-i Khalq rather as the US views al-Qaeda. Al-Hakim also reiterated that the new Iraqi government would not deal with Israel (an Arab League stance). Although the State Department has long listed the MKO on its list of terrorist organizations, the guerrilla group has been very successful in lobbying the US congress and has been supported by powerful Neoconservatives in the Defense Department (raising questions as to whether the MKO has an Israeli connection).

One of the more prominent supporters of this terrorist organization allied to Saddam Hussein is Daniel Pipes, head of the so-called "Middle East Forum" (it isn't a forum, it is just a way for his sugar daddies to fund Pipes); and he is also a supporter of the extremist Israeli settler movement on the West Bank and in Gaza. In one of a long series of lapses of judgment, President Bush appointed this supporter of Middle East terrorist organizations to the US Institute for Peace! Pipes also heads the so-called "Campus Watch," which engages in sleazy McCarthyite tactics, apparently as a cover for Pipes's own warm embrace of terrorist organizations like the MKO and the Israeli settler extremists.