Uncle Shmuel grants US citizenship to 16 key terrorist figures

Press TV reports:

The US has granted citizenship to 16 leading members of the blacklisted Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), an Iraqi security official says.

The official told Fars news agency that the MKO members who were given US citizenship were directly engaged in acts of terror against Iranians and the Iraqi people.

According to the security official, the terrorists, who had earlier exited Camp Ashraf, were reportedly transferred to a former Iraqi air force base near the capital, Baghdad.

The US had earlier relocated selected members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization after Iraqi authorities took control of their camp in Diyala province in August. The act was aimed at preventing MKO members from falling into the hands of the Iraqi government.

The Iraqi official said, however, that the US had denied support for a certain number of MKO members in the Camp after accessing their records.

He added that documents, including tapes of MKO espionage acts against the Iranian government, have been delivered from the camp to US military forces in Iraq.

His remarks come as Ali al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi security official, told Fars that there were documents available on the group's cooperation with al-Qaeda and Baath regime in their acts of violence.

He added the US was studying the records of certain MKO members willing to join American troops to select those useful to American forces in their anti-Iran goals.

The MKO, blacklisted by many international bodies, is responsible for many acts of terrorism against Iranian civilians and government officials.

The MKO terrorist group moved to Iraq in 1986, where it enjoyed the support of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. He provided the group with arms and military equipment to launch attacks against the Islamic Republic during the Iraq- war with Iran (1980-88).

The group launched operations against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war from Camp Ashraf, their headquarters and training site, and later assisted Saddam in violently suppressing the Iraqi Kurds during the 1991 uprising.

After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the fall of Saddam Hussein, the group is now directly supported by the United States.