Iranian exiles, on US terror list, now seeking refuge from Iraq

WASHINGTON -- US officials have asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to help resettle members of an Iranian rebel group living in exile in Iraq, even though the United States classifies the group as a terrorist organization.

Members of the Mujahedin-E-Khalq organization, who live in a US-protected encampment north of Baghdad, fear persecution in Iran, but find themselves increasingly unwelcome in Iraq.

One option is to try to resettle them voluntarily in a third country. Another is application for residency or asylum in Iraq -- but Iraqi leaders have long been hoping to expel them. A third is to repatriate them to Iran, with written assurances from Tehran that they will not be persecuted, said a US official based in Washington.

The US government's treatment of the 3,800-member group, which fled to Iraq after advocating the violent overthrow of Iran's regime, has often been contradictory over the years -- mirroring deep divisions in Washington over US policy towards Iran itself.

In 1997, the State Department put Mujahedin-E-Khalq on its list of terrorist groups for attacks it committed in the 1970s against US and Iranian officials. Some saw that move as a US gesture to improve long-frayed ties with Iran. The United States severed diplomatic ties with Iran in 1979, when a revolution led to the overthrow of Iran's pro-US leader, Shah Reza Pahlavi, and revolutionaries took US diplomats hostage.

But the terrorist designation of the group did not warm relations between the United States and Iran. Mujahedin-E-Khalq, meanwhile, intensely lobbied Congress to oppose the designation and gained widespread support as freedom fighters against clerical rule. The group's political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, received statements of support at a rally in 2000 from hundreds of members of Congress, including John Ashcroft, then a senator from Missouri.

In 2003, the group provided previously undisclosed details of Iran's secret nuclear program to the world. But the State Department forced it to close its offices in Washington because of the terror designation.

The inconsistent approach to the group reflects a debate in Washington about how to deal with Iran, which has built up unprecedented influence in the region in the last three years. US officials contend that Iran harbors nuclear ambitions and supports alleged terror groups in the region, including the Lebanon-based Hezbollah movement.

Pressure has mounted in recent weeks to decide how to handle Iran, after the 9/11 Commission reported that hijackers passed through Iran without their passports being stamped.

Conservatives in the administration advocate a hard line. They support Iranian opposition groups; some even advocate arming the Mujahedin-E-Khalq to fight the Tehran regime. And the hawks want to pressure the international community to bring Iran to the Security Council for possible international sanctions due to Iran's secrecy about its nuclear program and noncompliance with international agreements.

But another camp in Washington -- including some at the State Department -- contends that the US should explore ways to engage Iran and convince Tehran to make nuclear concessions.

Specialists say the debate has left US policy on Iran at a stalemate. ''I think the administration has come to a crossroads in its Iran policy and doesn't really know what to do, because threats and intimidation and name-calling has brought it nowhere," said Daniel Brumberg, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a liberal think tank.

''We have no Iran policy," said Michael Ladeen, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Meanwhile, the fate of the Mujahedin-E-Khalq remains in limbo.

On Monday, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said members of the group have been determined to be ''protected persons" -- or noncombatants -- under the Geneva Conventions, but that the group itself is still classified as a terrorist organization.

Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a public affairs officer for the US military in Iraq, said in an email to the Globe, ''The UNHCR has been asked to consider the status of the people there." Johnson also said the International Committee of the Red Cross had also been asked ''to determine the status and desires" of the members of the group, who voluntarily surrendered their heavy weapons when the US invaded Iraq.

Peter Kessler, spokesman for the UN refugee agency in Geneva, said he had not yet heard about a US request for involvement in the case. But Kessler said that if such a request were made, the International Committee of the Red Cross would first have to determine if the group fell under its jurisdiction as former combatants.

Those who were not deemed ''former combatants" would be considered, on a case-by-case basis, for refugee status by the UN refugee agency, Kessler said.

''If we determined that one or some or however many might be refugees, perhaps the government of Iraq might want to keep them in refugee camps," Kessler said. ''If for some other reason that's not possible, other countries might be sought to resettle them."

Which country would freely accept members of a group that remains on the State Department's terrorism list remains to be seen.

''They have a well-founded fear of persecution in Iran. Iraq doesn't want them," said one Washington-based US official. ''It's a conundrum."

Farah Stockman can be reached at fstockman@globe.com.