Anti-Iran militants return home

With Marxist roots, Mao-style political indoctrination, and self-criticism sessions that prompt former members to brand the MKO a cult, the group's history includes killing several Americans in the 1970s, supporting the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and seizing of the US Embassy. Losing out in the post-revolution power struggle, the MKO turned against the regime and launched a string of bomb attacks that killed hundreds in the early 1980s. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, survived an MKO attack in 1981 that paralyzed one arm.

For years the MKO leadership has warned members that they faced certain death or imprisonment if they returned to Iran. In its 2005 annual report, New York-based Human Rights Watch said that, despite specific new directives in Iran to stop such practices in 2004, "torture and ill-treatment ... are used routinely to punish [internal] dissidents."

Reporting from inside Camp Ashraf last weekend, The Los Angeles Times said the MKO dismisses the defectors as "quitters," and that those remaining "show no interest" in going back.

Most of those now repatriating to Iran have been with the MKO just a few years, and say they were "deceived" with promises of cash and a job when recruited in Turkey.

"It is 100 percent stress, but after four years I want to see my family," says Binyamin Espandani, a young former militant as he waits to join his family. "I went there for an objective - I wanted my country to stay independent.... But after the US came, the mujahideen were asking Americans for help to topple the government of my country."

A semiofficial agency that helps former militants reintegrate addressed the waiting families. "Maybe you expect your sons to [be unchanged from] five years ago, but it won't be the same - some were told [by the MKO] to cut themselves off from you," said Shahin Rabiee, of Anjoman Nejat, or "Rescue Association."

But there were warnings, too, for families that signed a form stating that they received their son "safe and sound," and were now "responsible for him."

"They are not completely innocent. They could have escaped [from Iraq] easily during the American attack; they had weapons in their hands," psychologist Dr. Sami Ani told them. "So we have to accept that your children were doing something against the security of the country. But they are forgiven.... They ... were brainwashed."

The happiness of homecoming set aside all other concerns. Former militant Hamid Sahapour held his mother's hand and stroked her face while his brother Davoud tearfully leaned on him from the right. "I can't express my joy - there are no words," says Mr. Sahapour. "Before the Americans came, if I said I wanted to leave, they would have sent 20 people to beat me."

This time Hamid's mother, Delaram Vatanha, vows never to let him out of her grasp: "I will not let him go again."

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