Mujahedin Khalq Organization

Members of a group that for the last few years has sought donations from travelers at Los Angeles International Airport on behalf of what they said was an Iraqi-based charity pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

Thousands of supporters of an Iranian opposition group called on the European Union and the United States to remove the organization from terrorism blacklists at a massive rally Saturday outside Paris. The Paris-based National Council Resistance of Iran -- an umbrella group that includes the Mujahedin Khalq -- held the rally at an exhibition center in the northern suburb Villepinte days after Britain removed the Mujahedin Khalq from its list of banned terrorism groups.

Re "Iranian Americans Rally for a Different Approach," Jan. 20 It is sad to read about the Mujahedin Khalq organization (a.k.a. MEK, MKO, NCRI and several other names) in that the terrorist group is portrayed as the representative of a quarter of a million Iranian Americans. The group was in charge of killing several Americans during the shah's regime in Iran. Its ideology is a mixture of Islam and Marxism. The group is run like a cult, in that the "holy" leaders (Maryam and Massoud Rajavi)

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki on Wednesday accused a militant Iranian opposition group of meddling in his country's affairs and suggested that it could face expulsion from Iraq, where it has been based for 20 years. The Iraqi leader said the Mujahedin Khalq, which is dedicated to toppling Iran's Islamist government, had become too involved in Iraq's political and social issues.

Residents of this sprawling commune an hour north of Baghdad pride themselves on their self-sufficiency. They bake their own bread, purify their own water, even make their own carbonated cola. They spend their days tending to their gardens, sprucing up their living quarters and listening to performances of John Lennon's "Imagine." And they conduct military drills while they wait for their chance to overthrow the Iranian government.