Senior U.S. military officials negotiated Friday with heavily armed Iranian rebels at their base camp for an apparent surrender.
The encounter came three weeks after a truce between the Mujahedeen Khalq--known as the MEK--and the Army, which U.S. officials said had been a "prelude" to surrender.
During the war, U.S. planes bombed MEK outposts and killed about 50 militiamen. After Iraq fell, U.S. authorities negotiated a cease-fire under the condition that the MEK stay on its bases and keep its weapons under wraps.
But in recent days, MEK fighters have been manning checkpoints about 40 miles north of Baghdad and letting nearby villagers know they still were a force to be reckoned with, U.S. officials said.
"It became obvious that we cannot have them around," a senior U.S. official in the Iraq transition team said Friday.
Military officials in Baghdad strongly suggested that if the standoff is not resolved peacefully, the MEK will "be removed" by U.S. forces.
By nightfall Friday, it was unclear where as many as 5,000 fighters of the MEK would go. The militia is not welcome in Iran, where it has been a longtime opposition group.
Its existence in Iraq is tenuous too. Saddam Hussein supported the fighters and created their haven. In exchange, the MEK acted as a Hussein proxy army, sometimes brutalizing opponents of the regime.
"Eventually these people will have to be repatriated in some capacity," said U.S. Maj. Rob Walter, an intelligence analyst in Baghdad. "We have to provide for their security before we can accept their surrender."
In southern Iraq, U.S. forces discovered a mass grave that appears to contain bodies of Kuwaitis missing since the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the Pentagon said. In the north, U.S. troops rounded up at least 80 Iraqis in a search for senior members of Hussein's Baath Party, American commanders said.
With U.S. tanks gathered at the entrance to the MEK camp and two B-52 bombers circling overhead, the American show of force was the largest since President Bush announced an end to major hostilities in Iraq last week.
Details of the U.S. talks with the MEK were kept secret. U.S. soldiers moving troops and artillery close to the stronghold described the patrols as "an ongoing operation."
Senior military officials in Baghdad suggested that if the standoff is not resolved peacefully, the MEK will "be removed" by U.S forces.
U.S. Army Gen. Ray Odierno left the base shortly before sundown in a convoy of six tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
A U.S. military commander said the talks revolved around the MEK's future role in the region. The talks appear to be part of a broad policy being forged in Washington to deal with terrorism threats from Iran along its 900-mile border with Iraq.
With Hussein's regime ousted, it would be difficult for the MEK to survive in Iraq. And after labeling it a terrorist group, the Pentagon would have a hard sell in finding the MEK a home elsewhere.
There would be advantages for the Bush administration to have the MEK still in play. It has acted as a buffer against Iranian influences infiltrating Iraq and provides intelligence about Iranian operations and intentions in the region.
A rival Iranian guerrilla group known as the Badr Brigade could fill an MEK void in eastern Iraq, threatening the establishment of a new Iraqi government.
"I believe they [Badr] are an organization [that will seek to extend] Iranian influence in the new Iraqi government," Odierno said this week.
Tehran, however, denounced the recent U.S. cease-fire deal with the MEK, saying it shows the Bush administration is not serious about curbing terrorism. Iran does not have diplomatic relations with the U.S., and Bush has said it is part of an "axis of evil."
Outside the MEK base Friday, militia members chatted amicably with U.S. soldiers. Their public face belies the terrorist attacks committed by the MEK in Iran, including the assassination of an Iranian military official in 1999, the Pentagon said.
"They may be using a charm campaign, but they're a terrorist organization," Walter said. "And this has to be dealt with."