Mujahedin-E Khalq

(MEK)

   The Peoples Holy Warriors is an Iranian Islamic leftist opposition group first established in 1965 to violently replace the shah (Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi) and now exists to oppose the Islamic Republic in Iran. It is supposedly led by the husband and wife team of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. Massoud's whereabouts are unknown, while his wife lives in France. For many years the MEK has been established in Iraq, where it was used by Saddam Hussein as a tool to oppose Iran. It still exists with some 3,500 members at Camp Ashraf some 100 kilometers north of Baghdad and west of Iran. It has become somewhat of a problematic embarrassment as it is officially classified by the State Department as a terrorist group but is still partially supported by the United States as a tool to be used against Iran. The U.S. relationship with the MEK illustrates how the United States sometimes uses its official designation of terrorism in a convenient but hypocritical manner. The Kurds and Shiite Arabs have long reviled the MEK because Saddam Hussein used it to help put down their uprisings after the Gulf War in 1991.