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A FEW weeks ago I received an e-mail from an acquaintance with the subject line: Have you seen the video everyone is talking about? I clicked play, and there was Howard Dean, on March 19 in Berlin, at his most impassioned, extolling the virtues of a woman named Maryam Rajavi and insisting that America should recognize her as the president of Iran. Ms. Rajavi and her husband, Massoud, are the leaders of a militant Iranian opposition group called the Mujahedeen Khalq, or Warriors of God. The group’s forces have been based for the last 25 years in Iraq, where I...

PARIS (AFP) - Iran's exiled opposition movement said Thursday it had learned of two previously unknown sites in and near Tehran that are being used to build nuclear warheads. "Resistance sources have managed to uncover two centres that work directly on nuclear armaments and which were until now kept secret," Mehdi Abrihamtchi of the People's Mujahedeen told reporters in Paris, where his group is based. "They are places for research and production of detonation systems which is a major part of the mullah's atomic bomb project," he said, adding that his organisation had passed on the information to the UN...

Iraq's government acknowledged on Thursday that seven Iranian exiles were killed when Iraqi forces took control of their camp this week north of Baghdad. Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh earlier denied anyone died in the clashes between Iraqi forces and protesters who tried to block their entry into Camp Ashraf, home to the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran Iraq, Iran and the United States call the dissident group a terrorist organization. Iraq's Shi'ite Arab-led government wants to close the camp and send residents back to Iran or to a third country. Dabbagh, on Thursday, said seven people had died but disputed...

PARIS (Reuters) - The U.S. military has granted "protected status" under the Geneva Convention to members of an exiled Iranian opposition group interned in Iraq, France-based exiles and U.S. officials said on Monday. The U.S. head of detainee operations in Iraq, Major-General Geoffrey Miller, told the People's Mujahideen Organization (MKO) its members held at a base in eastern Iraq had been recognized as "protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention." "(This is a) triumph for the Iranian Resistance and the Iranian people," Maryam Rajavi, head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said in a statement. The United...

   The Cult of Rajavi  By Elizabeth Rubin   For more than 30 years, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People's Mujahedeen, has survived and operated on the margins of history and the slivers of land that Saddam Hussein and French governments have proffered it. During the 1970's, while it was still an underground Iranian political movement, you could encounter some of its members on the streets of New York, waving pictures of torture victims of the shah's regime. In the 80's and 90's, after its leaders fled Iran, you could see them raising money and petitioning on university campuses around...

Representatives of an Iranian opposition group are appealing to the Pentagon to overrule an order this week by the Iraqi Governing Council that would expel its members from Iraq by the end of the year, possibly to Iran. The group, the People's Mujahedeen, or Mujahedeen Khalq, maintained armed camps in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. It is listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, but it has strong supporters in the Pentagon, who see it as an important pressure point on the Iranian government. The request was sent on Thursday to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and shown to...

The Iraqi Governing Council might ask the U.S. military to expel an anti-Iran paramilitary group from Iraq, but the council has no plans to hand them over to Iran, where they are wanted for terrorist attacks, two Iraqi officials said Friday. Earlier this week, the U.S.-appointed council decided to expel by year's end the 3,800 members of the Mujahedeen Khalq, listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union. "We might ask the Americans because they have the military capabilities," Governing Council member Dara Noor al-Din said. "We don't have an army and the police force isn't...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A bomb exploded on the outskirts of the southern city of Mahawil on Friday, wounding two Polish soldiers on patrol in the area. A military spokesman said the soldiers' injuries were not life-threatening and that the attack was under investigation. Mahawil is about 50 miles southeast of Baghdad. Two other coalition soldiers were slightly injured earlier Friday when Iraqi insurgents fired at least two projectiles, possibly mortar shells, at coalition headquarters in Baghdad. A spokeswoman said she did not know their nationalities. A building in the so-called Green Zone, the downtown area housing the headquarters, was slightly...

PARIS - A French court Wednesday ordered the release of nine people arrested during a recent broad anti-terrorism sweep, including the leader of an exile group seeking to topple Iran's ultra-religious government, judicial officials said. But the Paris appeals court said Maryam Rajavi, a leader of the group Mujahedeen Khalq, and one other defendant must first pay bail. Rajavi was ordered to pay about $93,000 and likely will not be released before Thursday, the officials said. Two other jailed members of the most powerful Iranian opposition movement were released Tuesday. Rajavi and more than 150 other group members were detained...

Group planned attacks: France ZEALOUS PASSION: Tuesday's raids on the Mujahedeen Khalq, which has been in Paris since 1979, triggered dramatic protests by members in Paris, London and Bern AP Friday, Jun 20, 2003,Page 6 A Mujahedeen Khalq supporter sets himself on fire during a demonstration in front of French counter-intelligence services near the Bir-Hakeim bridge on Wednesday in Paris. Two women set themselves on fire earlier Wednesday during the protest. PHOTO: AFP A leading Iranian opposition group had planned attacks on Iranian diplomatic missions in Europe and elsewhere, a top French intelligence chief said Wednesday, explaining massive raids on...

PARIS - Paris police rounded up nearly 100 members of an Iranian exile group Thursday to stop them from setting fire to themselves in protest of a French crackdown on their organization. Three people from the group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, doused themselves with flammable liquid and set themselves on fire in Europe on Thursday — two in Rome and one in Bern, Switzerland. That raised the group's number of self-immolations to seven, even as its leaders appealed for a halt to the practice. The Mujahedeen Khalq has been protesting in the streets of Paris and other European cities since French...

<p>TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's foreign minister said Friday that the al-Qaida operatives Iran now has in custody were arrested before the May 12 suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia and couldn't have been involved in the attacks.</p> <p>"There is no possibility that they were able to do any (bombing) operation nor could they lead these kind of military operations," Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters at one of several impromptu news conferences he's held recently to counter American accusations that his country is failing to fight terrorism. "When they are in prison all their connections are cut with the outside."</p>

<p>Surrounded by American tanks, an Iranian opposition group under orders to surrender agreed Saturday to turn over its weapons and submit to the demands of U.S. forces, Army officials said. The United States used the occasion to warn other forces not to assert power.</p>

Iranian Opposition Group in Iraq Gives UpBy LOUIS MEIXLER Associated Press Writer May 10, 2003, 4:56 PM EDT CAMP ASHRAF, Iraq -- Surrounded by American tanks, an Iranian opposition group under orders to surrender agreed Saturday to turn over its weapons and submit to the demands of U.S. forces, Army officials said. The United States used the occasion to warn other forces not to assert power. Representatives of the Mujahedeen Khalq operating near Baqubah, 45 miles northeast of the capital, struck the agreement after two days of negotiations with U.S. forces. Their capitulation was reported by the U.S. Army's V...