US lawmakers warn Iraq over MKO relocation

US lawmakers have warned Iraqi leaders about relocating more than three-thousand MKO members from Camp Ashraf in northern Iraq.

A resolution presented by Democratic lawmakers has also called on President Barack Obama to stop the relocation of members of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) from Iraq.

According to a plan ordered by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki the group should first be moved to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and later to a 1950s detention camp in southern Iraq.

Some 120 House members backed a resolution, presented by Democrat Bob Filner, to ask Obama to defuse the Iraqi move.

“We are here to call on whoever will listen, the Iraqi government the US government, to halt the forcible relocation of the residents of Camp Ashraf,” AFP quoted Filner as telling to reporters.

Members of the terrorist group also defied the Iraqi government’s orders to leave.

Meanwhile, Iraqi army Colonel Bassel Hamad told reporters that “Camp residents have been aware since October 19 that they are to be cleared out today and moved elsewhere while respecting international human rights standards.”

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein dedicated Camp Ashraf to host the group. They resided in Camp Ashraf near the Iranian border for the past two decades and were lucky enough to receive protected status following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

However, control of the camp was handed over to Iraqi forces earlier this year and the Baghdad government stepped up efforts to expel the anti-Iran terrorists.

The Baghdad government had been warning for months that its patience with the grouplet was wearing thin.

Iran has condemned Washington for supporting the terrorist group and has asked Iraq to expel MKO members.

The MKO has been blacklisted as a terrorist organization by many international organizations and countries including the United States.

In Iran, members of the Mujahidin Khalq organization are regarded as traitors for siding with the Ba’ath regime during the Iraq-imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).

The group became especially notorious after they masterminded a torrent of terrorist operations inside Iran, one of which was the 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic Republic Party that killed more than 72 cabinet members, including the second-elected president of Iran, Mohammad Ali Rajai, and judicial chief Mohammad Beheshti

In Iraq, MKO is seen as “a brainwashed cult from a high-trained terrorist organization” which assisted the Saddam regime in oppressing the Iraqi nation and suppressing the Kurds and Shias in the 1990’s.