Suicide bomber from Camp Ashraf turns himself in to security forces

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: A resident from Camp Ashraf, the headquarters of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), turned himself in to security forces, confessing that the PMOI sent him to launch a suicide attack against the security forces’ headquarters, the National Security Ministry said in a statement on Monday. “The man asserted that leaders from the PMOI exert pressures on the camp’s residents to make them wage attacks,” said the statement received by IraqiNews.com news agency. “He said that by implementing this attack,the PMOI leaders aimed at creating regional and international clamor, mainly in the U.S. and Europe,” the statement added. “The plot aims to embarrass the Iraqi security forces because they are responsible for the camp’s security,” it added. PMOI is a militant Islamic Socialist organization that advocates the overthrow of Iran’s current government.Founded in 1965, the PMOI was originally devoted to armed struggle against the Shah of Iran, capitalism, and Western imperialism. The group officially renounced violence in 2001 and today it is the main organization in the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an “umbrella coalition” parliament-in-exile that claims to be dedicated to a democratic, secular and coalition government in Iran. The group has had thousands of its members for many years in bases in Iraq, but “they were disarmed in the wake” of the 2003 US-led invasion and “are said to have adhered to a ceasefire.”The PMOI’s armed wing is, or was, called the National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA). The Iranian government officially refers to the organization as the Monafeqin (literally, “ Hypocrites “), maintaining that PMOI is not truly Islamic. The United States, European Union (EU), Canada, Iraq and Iran have designated the PMOI a terrorist organization.Although the European Court of Justice has overturned the EU designation in December 2006, the Council of the EU declared on January 30, 2007 that it would maintain the organization on the blacklist. Camp Ashraf, which lies in the province of Diala, 57 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has existed since the 1980s. The PMOI members in Iraq were collaborating with the former regime of Saddam Hussein during its war with Iran from 1980 to 1988.   SH (S)/SR 1