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HomeNEWSRESISTANCEIran proxies murdered MEK members in Camp Ashraf, U.S. State Department confirms

Iran proxies murdered MEK members in Camp Ashraf, U.S. State Department confirms

Reporting by PMOI/MEK

Washington, October 19, 2019— “On September 1, 2013, an attack by Iranian proxies Kata’ib Hezballah (KH) and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) on Camp Ashraf in Iraq, led to the deaths of 50 members of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, or MeK,” reads a new report by the U.S. State Department.

Titled “Iranian Regime Malign Activities During Negotiations With Iran and During JCPOA,” the report sheds light on the numerous hostile activities the Iranian regime carried out while negotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an agreement with world powers to set limits on its nuclear program.

“Press reports claim members of the [Quds Force] not only planned the attack but also played a direct combat role in it. The QF, along with [Kata’ib Hezballah] and [Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq] members, also abducted seven MeK members and smuggled them back to Iran, according to the press.  The missing seven members haven’t been seen or heard from since the attack,” the report reads.

The Quds Force is the extraterritorial arm of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), which the U.S. designated as a terrorist entity earlier this year. Kata'ib and Asa'ib are two Shiite militia groups that are directly backed by Iran. They're part of the Popular Mobilization Forces (also known as Hashid al-Shaabi), an umbrella of paramilitary forces that have had an active role in sectarian violence in Iraq. The PMF has become deeply integrated with the Iraqi military and politics.

 

The September 1 attack on Camp Ashraf, which has become known as the Ashraf Massacre, was orchestrated by the Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, a close ally of the Iranian regime. At the time, only 100 people remained at Camp Ashraf, the 26-year home of MEK members, to facilitate the sale of the residents’ properties. The rest of the residents of the camp had been previously transferred to Camp Liberty, next to the Baghdad International Airport.

With the help of Iraqi forces ostensibly in charge of protecting the camp, the assailants performed reconnaissance activities several weeks before the attack. According to accounts by eyewitnesses, Iraqi forces gave lodgings to the attackers on the eve of the Ashraf Massacre and opened the way for them to attack the residents, who were all unarmed and defenseless.

The attackers murdered 52 of the residents in the most brutal way, using live ammunition and delivering coup-de-grace shots to the injured. Despite international calls for an independent UN-led investigation into the Ashraf Massacre, no action has been taken yet.

In September 2017, on the fourth anniversary of the Ashraf massacre, in a ceremony in the presence of a number of international personalities and a large group of MEK members in Tirana, Albania, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said, “The mass execution of PMOI members was the hidden half of the regime’s retreat in the nuclear talks and the JCPOA. Before the start of the talks with P5+1 and signing of an agreement on November 2013, the regime resorted to the massacre in Ashraf.”

 

Mrs. Rajavi also stressed that attacking the members of MEK in Camps Ashraf and Liberty was part of any strategic decisions the regime made. “Following Khamenei’s approval of the JCPOA in October 2015, Camp Liberty was attacked by rockets. All the stages of the nuclear agreement, starting from secret talks to the signing of JCPOA, were accompanied by attacks on and slaughter of Ashraf residents,” Mrs. Rajavi said.

Mrs. Rajavi reminded the audience that the regime sees its survival in the annihilation of its most important existential threat, namely the MEK and the Iranian Resistance.

“The massacre in Ashraf, however, does not fade in the past. Like the 1988 massacre, it is directly tied to the Resistance, and freedom and human rights in Iran. The dossier on Ashraf must be opened, and Khamenei, Maliki and others involved in this massacre must face justice,” Mrs. Rajavi said.

U.S. State Department confirms Iran proxies murdered MEK members in Camp Ashraf

U.S. State Department confirms Iran proxies murdered MEK members in Camp Ashraf

 

 

 

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