Fresh off Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s statement to the United Nations insisting that Mujahedin e-Khalq (MeK)’s Camp Ashraf should be closed by year’s end has sprung the State Department-listed Foreign Terrorist Organization into action, with a series of condemnations from both them and their supporters.
A gathering of hundreds of MeK supporters rallied in Brussels, today, with former US Senator Howard Dean condemning the idea of closing the camp and demanding that the US force Iraq to postpone the closure before ending the occupation.
“The US remains morally responsible for the people of Ashraf,” Dean insisted. The camp was established by Saddam Hussein as a headquarters for his allies in the MeK in 1986. The US seized the camp during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the group negotiated a ceasefire.
But while the MeK is enjoying something of a renaissance among US officials as a group of “freedom fighters” the group’s open hostility toward Iran and history as a Saddam ally has earned it considerable scorn among the Maliki government, which is determined to see the camp closed.