US woman charged with supporting our governments favorite terror group

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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1159193344792&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

A naturalized US citizen from Iran who was found in Iraq was indicted Friday on charges of providing support to a terrorist organization that seeks to overthrow the current Iranian regime, federal prosecutors said.

Zeinab Taleb-Jedi, 51, then a resident of Herndon, Virginia, went to Iraq in 1999 to attend a training camp run by the Mujahedeen Khalq, or MEK, the US attorney's office in Los Angeles said in a statement.

"During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Taleb-Jedi was discovered by coalition forces in an MEK training camp called Ashraf Base," about 65 kilometers northwest of Baghdad, the statement said.



http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/09.30B.nswk.bagdad.htm

Ashcroft's Baghdad Connection

Why the attorney general and others in Washington have backed a terror group with ties to Iraq

By Michael Isikoff

NEWSWEEK

Thursday, 26 September, 2002

When the White House released its Sept. 12 "white paper" detailing Saddam Hussein's "support for international terrorism," it caused more than a little discomfort in some quarters of Washington.

The 27-page document--entitled "A Decade of Deception and Defiance"--made no mention of any Iraqi ties to Osama bin Laden. But it did highlight Saddam's backing of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), an obscure Iranian dissident group that has gathered surprising support among members of Congress in past years. One of those supporters, the documents show, is a top commander in President Bush's war on terrorism: Attorney General John Ashcroft, who became involved with the MKO while a Republican senator from Missouri.

The case of Ashcroft and the MKO shows just how murky fighting terrorism can sometimes get. State Department officials first designated the MKO a "foreign terrorist organization" in 1997, accusing the Baghdad-based group of a long series of bombings, guerilla cross-border raids and targeted assassinations of Iranian leaders. Officials say the MKO--which originally fought to overthrow the Shah of Iran--was linked to the murder of several U.S. military officers and civilians in Iran in the 1970s. "They have an extremely bloody history," says one U.S. counterterrorism official. snip

Only two years ago, these arguments won sympathy from Ashcroft--and more than 200 other members of Congress. When the National Council of Resistance staged a September 2000 rally outside the United Nations to protest a speech by Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, Missouri's two Republican senators--Ashcroft and Chris Bond--issued a joint statement of solidarity that was read aloud to a cheering crowd. A delegation of about 500 Iranians from Missouri attended the event--and a picture of a smiling Ashcroft was later included in a color briefing book used by MKO officials to promote their cause on Capitol Hill. Ashcroft was hardly alone. Among those who actually appeared at the rally and spoke on the group's behalf was one of its leading congressional supporters: Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Torricelli.

That same year, Senator Ashcroft wrote a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno protesting the detention of an Iranian woman, Mahnaz Samadi, who was a leading spokeswoman for the National Council of Resistance. The case quickly became a cause celebre for the MKO and its supporters in the United States. snip

Senator Ashcroft saw the case differently. In his May 10, 2000, letter to Reno, the Missouri lawmaker expressed "concern" about the detention, calling Samadi a "highly regarded human-rights activist" and a "powerful voice for democracy." (As part of a later settlement with the INS, Samadi admitted her membership in MKO but denied that she personally participated in any "terrorist activity." While her grant of political asylum was revoked, the INS dropped its deportation proceedings and she was permitted to remain in the United States.)

[liberal N proud]

1. And now they can torture her!

America, we now torture in the open.