CIA recruiting PMOI members, reports say

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, April 14 (UPI) -- Media reports suggested Tuesday that officials from the United States and the United Arab Emirates are recruiting Iranian dissidents to spy on Iranians.

Iran's Entekhab news agency points to accounts in the Arabic-language Nahrainnet news service in the United Arab Emirates that said the CIA has recruited members of the dissident People's Mujahedin of Iran to spy on Iranian nationals in the region.

The reports said the CIA has brought PMOI members to Dubai from their Camp Ashraf enclave in Iraq's Diyala province.

The Nahrainnet report specifically mentioned the CIA is looking to the PMOI to serve as agents conducting espionage against the Iranian Embassy and its staff in Dubai.

The PMOI is an Iranian opposition movement seeking regime change in Iran. It is considered a terrorist organization by several nations for its violent action against Iran in the 1980s, but the group claims to have abandoned its militant tactics in 2003.

The group has a notably bitter relationship with certain members of the Iraqi government, raising several objections to its treatment at Camp Ashraf.

Among those are claims that Ashraf residents were denied medical treatment by Iraqi authorities. The Voices of Iraq news agency reported Tuesday, however, that Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie offered health treatment to Ashraf residents at Iraqi hospitals.