French Embassy Confirms Crackdown on MKO

“The arrests came during the police manhunt for 150 MKO members who were planning terrorist operations,” an embassy official told the Mehr News Agency on condition of anonymity.

French anti-terrorist police on Tuesday launched a major crackdown on the group detaining 165 people, including one of the organization's ringleaders Maryam Rajavi.

The MKO is a terrorist organizations with its headquarters in Iraq. It collaborated with the Ba’th party in suppressing the Kurdish and Shia uprisings in the post-1991 Persian Gulf war.

Maryam Rajavi's husband Massoud – who is said to have gone underground with Saddam Hussein’s sons – was based in Iraq before the U.S. attack on Baghdad.

The MKO was put on a terrorist blacklist by both the United States and the European Union last year. Although the organization is on the terrorist list of the U.S. State Department, it runs its offices just close to the White House.

The French diplomat provided no further details, saying the French Ministry of Justice is responsible for providing information on such cases.

Tuesday's raids around Paris were ordered by France's leading

anti-terrorist judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, as part of an

investigation launched several years ago into "criminal association

with a view to preparing acts of terrorism and financing a terrorist

organization,

ST/ST