Page 221 – Nejat Society

MEK agents mourning an advocate of war and violence

There is no surprise to see the agents of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ the Cult of Rajavi) participating in the memorial of Senator John McCain. The group’s propagandists in the United States, Alireza Jafarzadeh and Sona Samsami attended Senator John McCain’s memorial. As he tweeted, Jafarzadeh was “honored” to pay tribute to the deceased senator for what he calls “standing on the side of freedom fighters of Iran as they seek a free Iran and global peace”.

What Jafarzaed calls “freedom fighters” of Iran is the lexical equivalent of “Mujahedin_e khalq_e Iran”. Yes, senator McCain was standing by the side of them. He met the leader of the group Maryam Rajavi in Albania in April 2017.

The American journalist Michael Rubin who is a longstanding critic of the Iranian Government and an admirer of US warmongers against Iran , criticized senator McCain for the visit. “With this meeting, McCain has embraced the enemy of our enemy in the Tehran regime, but he has also embraced the enemy of the Iranian people,” he wrote at AEIdeas on April, 17th, 2017. [1]

Earlier in June2015, McCain attended the MKO annual gathering in Paris –that regularly features speeches and appearances of dozens of current and former officials from the U.S., Europe and the Middle East, all of whom join in the call for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. This was McCain’s first appearance by the side of the formerly terrorist designated MKO. “John McCain continues his long tradition of embracing horrible foreign groups,” asserted Daniel Larison of the American Conservative. “He frequently endorses dubious and disreputable groups when they happen to share his dangerous foreign policy goals.” [2]

“McCain has been a leading advocate for a policy that has sent weapons into Syria when they have been seized by Jabhat al-Nusra or ISIS,” Larison added. “Those are just the most obvious examples of McCain’s terrible judgment. McCain doesn’t discriminate when it comes to choosing allies of convenience in pursuing unwise and reckless goals, so it was probably just a matter of time before he started associating with the MEK.” [3]

After the death of Senator McCain, Larison cultivates his legacy as a Vietnam veteran and along-time Congressman. “He specialized in matters of national security and foreign policy, and yet he had a remarkable knack for misjudging practically every major foreign policy issue of the last three decades,” he writes. [4]

“McCain distinguished himself as a consistent proponent of unnecessary foreign wars in the name of American “leadership,” and the country was always worse off when the president heeded his recommendations,” Larison states. “He was a leading cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq and intervention in Libya, and he was wrong about both. He was also a Kosovo war supporter and has been a steadfast defender of U.S. support for the Saudi war on Yemen. When Georgia escalated a conflict with Russia, he insanely proclaimed, “We are all Georgians” and gave the impression that he was willing to risk WWIII over a dispute that had nothing to do with us. Despite his constant demands for more “action,” the U.S. did not intervene in Syria as forcefully or as soon as he wanted. He was even once quoted praising the Saudis for their role in Syria. “Thank God for the Saudis,” he said. He was famously hawkish on Iran (“bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran,” he sang), and in recent years went so far as to jump on the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) bandwagon. This is a record of horrible judgment and even more horrible costs for the people in the countries affected by the policies he supported.” [5]

Markha Valenta of Open Democracy describes senator McCain’s political characteristics as “a public man who made two runs at leading the most powerful war machine this world has known” but he believes that McCain’s bitter experiences in Vietnam justifies his violence-based strategies. “The nearly six years he spent in jail in Hanoi ravaged McCain physically and mentally,” Valenta writes. “His survival of them would come to establish his character and undergird his political career.”

The correspondent of Open Democracy notifies McCain’s desire to bomb Iran. “McCain fought the Iranian nuclear deal tooth and nail, and hailed Trump’s evisceration of it,” he suggests. “When it came to Iran, all of McCain’s readiness to reach across the aisle vanished. “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran”McCain once notoriously sang to the tune of the Beach Boys tune Barbara Ann.” [6]

McCain’s double standards for human Rights and terrorism is also discussed in Valenta’s article. “On the one hand, McCain’s close friendship with Israel and unrelenting enmity against Iran also meant enmity towards those Iran supported, from Hamas to Yemeni Houthis to Assad,” he write. “Even as McCain decried Assad’s violation of Syrians’ human rights and supported those rising in protest, he had absolutely nothing to say about the human rights of Palestinians and Houthis as they faced blockades, bombing, and incursions. Indeed, McCain loudly supported not only Israel but also the extravagantly undemocratic regime of Saudi Arabia (“thank God for the Saudis”), along with the Iranian dissident group Mujahideen-e Khalq (MeK).” [7]

He offers a short but enlightening description of the MKO as terrorist undemocratic cult: “MeK was notorious for a string of political murders in 1981 (including Americans), for joining Saddam Hussain in the war against Iran, and more recently for indulging in a host of aggressive cultish practices. Those who have left the group accuse it of ending romantic relationships, forcing others into arranged marriages, brainwashing, sexual abuse and torture. In short, going against all principles of social and political relation for which McCain stood. All this McCain was willing to ignore in publicly speaking with and on behalf of MeK: given the choice between democratic principles and undemocratic alliances against Iran, he chose the latter.” [8]

Therefore, a McCain-MKO alliance did not seem to have anything to do with “freedom” and “global peace”. Regarding the MKO’s violent past and its cult-like nature, it is definitely considered as a threat to freedom and welfare of its-own members and peace for the citizens of any society they live in. The first victims would be MEK members and the next targets could be Albanian, write the group’s former members and cult expert, Ann and Massoud Khodabandeh. [9]

Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] Rubin, Michael, What is John McCain thinking?, AEIdeas, April 12th, 2017.

[2]Larison, Daniel, McCain Is the MEK’s Newest Fan, The American Conservative, June 15th, 2015.

[3] ibid

[4] Larison, Daniel, McCain’s Foreign Policy Record, The American Conservative, August 27th, 2018.

[5] ibid

[6]Valenta, Markha, John McCain: on mourning a principled man … of violence, Open Democracy

29th, August 2018.

[7] ibid

[8] ibid

[9] Khodabandh, Massoud & Ann, False Flag Op In Albania Would Drive A Wedge Between The EU And Iran, Lobelog, August 30th, 2018.

September 5, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Answering the defamations of Margarita Kola and the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq cult

Mostafa Mohammadi and Mahbubeh Hamza

In a letter that Margarita Kola, the lawyer of the defunct terrorist Mojahedin group, has published in the Albanian media, Kola has repeated the slander and lies that the Mojahedin cult casts against me and my daughter whom they hold hostage. For this reason, we the parents of Somayeh wrote this answer to Mrs. Margarita Kola:

First, we say that Mrs Margarita Kola, in her letter written on behalf of a so-called phantom group called ‘The Committee of Lawyers for the PMOI in Albania (CJPA)’, repeats the lies that the Mojahedin terrorists throw at me and the hundreds of other parents of the members they hold hostage in Albania. She says that I, Mostafa Mohammadi, came to Albania to mislead public opinion and conduct a campaign to denigrate the defunct MEK terrorist organization.

Secondly, she claims that I am an agent of the Iranian government who exerts psychological pressure on my daughter to surrender; ie to abandon jihad and terrorism and become a normal person and have a civilized life away from violent extremism and radicalisation.

Third, she claims that Somayeh stands by her wish to remain in the MEK military camp and voluntarily refuses Canada and a free life.

Fourth, she repeats the idiotic propaganda slogans of MEK, which claims that MEK is a democratic and revolutionary organization, while the Iranian regime plans attacks against the elderly MEK members and that I am part of these attacks. In an illegal way, she asks the Albanian government to expel me from Albania so that the MEK terrorists and hostage takers will not have to face me in court.

In relation to the above, as Somayeh’s family, we say to Mrs Kola:

Be ashamed of the slander you fling at me and my family and for becoming party to a defunct terrorist gang that has held my daughter hostage for 21 years. If you were a real lawyer, you would not play with the card that you are a former US Embassy employee and would not blackmail people left and right with the slogan: “You know who I am, if you know you will save your job!” A real lawyer respects the law and does not write slander in the media. Because you – as a lawyer – know very well what is the sequence of criminal offenses; lack of free will, freedom of the person, deprivation of the right to free movement, the presumption of innocence, what is the difference between arrest and accompanying the police, what is a final decision or right to appeal.

I am not in Albania to attack MEK, I am here to release my daughter from the MEK’s terrorist-jihadist cult. I want to save my daughter from violent extremism and radicalisation. I want to save Somayeh from Manzas’ hell and take her to Canada’s freedom. At no time did I want to take my daughter to Iran, nor do I care what you do politically. I have left Iran as an asylum-seeker. If you look at my Canadian passport that MEK has copied, my country of birth exists alongside my Canadian nationality. Obtaining a visa from Iran to enter Iraq for a while does not make me anything, it does not make me less of a parent, nor take away the right to be the father of Somayeh. You as a lawyer should know that a visa does not show anything, but you have become a party to the defunct terrorists and slander me along with this group. As a lawyer, can you explain legally what is this radical group to my daughter? Why should the group interfere with our parental relationship and keep my daughter hostage? Why should I communicate through the media with my daughter? What guarantee do I have that my daughter is not being tortured or psychologically abused by this group, as the former Mojahedin members tell me? Why in any case did you not tell why I, a MEK supporter, wanted to remove my children from this group? You as a lawyer should know that my son stayed in MEK for five years and is witness to all the suffering there.

The Jihadist commanders Behzad Saffari, Jila Deyhim, Ahmad Taba etc., who hold my daughter hostage, led the gangs that beat me in Tirana in July and have their hands stained with blood and murder in Iraq, Iran, etc, one day, sooner or later will face justice just as Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic did. If they do not face justice in Albania, they will face justice in the European courts.

Commander Behzad Saffari, a jihadist who probably wrote for you the propaganda letter you have signed against me, is one of the key people in the kidnapping, abuse and psychological pressure of my daughter. He will one day face the law for his pressure and blackmail against my daughter as proven by Canadian sources. Behzad Saffari, who runs the MEK offensive in Albania and coerces the media not to publish the charges against the MEK under the justification of “if you do this, Iran will kill us”, is the person who tortured my son Mohamad in Iraq, holding me prisoner in a container in the desert, and he is the key person holding my daughter in Manza.

My daughter Somayeh Mohammadi is hostage to the terrorist MEK organization. The letters she writes are not written by her but by Mojahedin commanders holding her hostage in the Manza camp. The MEK jihadist command does not allow my daughter to go free but keeps her locked inside the camp. Why?

They are afraid that if Somayeh meets her parents and leaves of her own free will, she will publicise the crimes that MEK has comitted against her. The letters MEK publishes on her behalf are letters that the MEK itself writes. The MEK and jihadists like Behzad Saffari are so scared of my daughter that they do not want her to leave the Manzas jihadist camp and meet with her parents or journalists. They do not trust Somayeh to be free. For this reason, in recent weeks MEK has attacked and beaten and insulted Albanian media and journalists, Britons etc. who went to Manza camp to meet Somayeh. MEK does not dare at any time to let Somayeh go free. For this reason, they have probably written the letter you signed against us for you. They want to frighten public opinion and justify not allowing anyone to have access to a free Somayeh who does not live under the constant pressure of MEK jihadists. Somayeh is as free as the ISIS hostages who were free when they came out in front of the cameras and praised ISIS with a pistol at their heads. And you Mrs. Kola know this very well.

Commander Behzad Saffari has never forgiven Somayeh and never leaves her alone to be free because in 2004 when she was interviewed by Canadian authorities she expressed the desire to leave MEK. But as shown in reports from Canada (read Stewart Bell’s writings in Albanian.com), she was blackmailed by Behzad Saffari in the presence of Canadian officials and she lives in psychological terror of this terror Mojahed.

Mrs Margarita Kola. We, Somayeh’s parents, want our daughter to live as freely as you. To dress as she pleases. Go for a coffee like you. If she wants, to use a marital agency like you. Marry, have a family, a companion and have companionship like you. If you think our daughter is happy with the life she has, we suggest that you change roles with our daughter. Go to Manzas and become a jihadist, dress in a military uniform, and live in the middle of the heat at the MEK military camp and pray for jihad against Iran. As a witness to this, convince Behzad Saffari to release our daughter and let her enjoy a free life like you do in Tirana.

Understandably, the MEK command will never allow such a thing. Behzad Saffari would not accept you as a jihadist in Manza, as you do not meet their standards.

We ask the Albanian authorities to secure the life of our daughter who is held hostage by MEK, as we know that if one day our daughter is at liberty, the MEK will do everything they can to ensure she does not live anymore.

Somayeh knows many secrets of the MEK. That is why she is kept in isolation at the Manzas jihadist camp.

But we her parents promise we will never stop our legal battle to liberate our daughter from the defunct MEK terrorist organization.

Gazeta Shqiptare, Tirana, Albania,

September 3, 2018 1 comment

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 241

++ A few people have written in response to the death of Senator John McCain, a long-term supporter of MEK and other violent groups. Most derided the MEK sending condolences to one another for the ‘martyrdom’ of Brother Mojahed John McCain. Another commented on the change from MEK’s anti-Imperialist beginnings to now, saying that Hanif Nejad was put in the mincer of Capitalism and the product churned out was Maryam Rajavi, a tool for the neoconservative agenda led by the likes of McCain.

++ In Albania, the harassment of reporters and media owners has continued and even increased. MEK operatives Behzad Saffari and Totounchi are those doing the harassing, they tell everyone that ‘the Americans are with us and the CIA will destroy you’.

++ From Paris, Homayoun Kohzadi wrote that ‘the consequence of supporting a terrorist cult like MEK is not confined to Iran’. Kohdazi examines the effects of MEK on other countries. MEK’s interference in the internal affairs of Iraq and its support for the insurgency contributed to delaying the establishment of a stable government in that country, claims Kohdazi. He mentions MEK’s involvement in Syria and siding with Daesh. He looks at MEK’s history of taking sides in regional conflict from killing Kurds for Saddam to siding with Saudi Arabia in its war against Yemen. Kohdazi also brings up Europe and America, where MEK has, for example, launched an attack on a former MEP as well as its ongoing corruption of political systems and individuals through payments, bribes and intimidation.

In English:

++ Ivan Kesic, writing in the American Herald Tribune ‘Worse than ISIL: The Dark Past of Mujahedin-e Khalq Terrorist Group’, says that looking at “their crimes and massacres, number of victims and the operational coverage”, not ISIS, Al Qaida Boko Haram nor any similar groups match the MEK led by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. Recalling the number of those killed by MEK over the years in Iran, Iraq and elsewhere, Kesic gives an account of MEK acts, from the killing of six Americans in the 1970s to bombings, assassinations and terrorist attacks in Iran and Northern American and Western European countries. He reminds us “During the [Iran-Iraq] war and later in the 1991 uprisings in Iraq, the Mujahedin-e Khalq assisted Iraqi Ba’athist government in a series of systematic attacks against the Kurdish fighters (Iran’s allies) in northern Iraq. The result of their action was a genocide that killed between around 100,000 Kurdish civilians. Former Mujahedin members remember Maryam Rajavi’s infamous command at the time: ‘Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’. Regardless of their share in a committed genocide, it is higher than all the Daesh’s massacres committed against Yazidis, Christians, and Shias combined.”

++ Mazda Parsi in Nejat Bloggers examines the MEK’s role in America’s new ‘Action Group’ led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Parsi uses quotes from an article by Caitlin Johnstone, That Time Hillary Clinton Removed John Bolton’s Favorite Terror Cult from the Terrorist List’, The Medium, and the aforementioned article by Ivan Kesic, to illustrate why Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was so confident in his Tweet: “’65 years ago today, the US overthrew the popularly elected democratic government of Dr. Mossadegh, restoring the dictatorship and subjugating Iranians for the next 25 years’, Zarif said. ‘Now an ‘Action Group’ dreams of doing the same through pressure, misinformation &demagoguery. Never again.’”

++ Euro Timers posted a short video on YouTube titled ‘The Most Dangerous Cult in Albania’. As the title suggests, the film shows why hosting a closed, terrorist cult in a small culturally open country like Albania is a disastrous mistake.

++ Iran Interlink republished a series of articles, first published in Canada in 2006, which follow the story of Mostafa Mohammadi and his quest to rescue his daughter Somayeh from the hands of the MEK. These articles have now been translated into Albanian and are being published in Shqiptarja.com, Albania’s leading print newspaper. The post includes hand written letters by Somayeh Mohammadi to her family and the Canadian authorities, asking for help to be brought out of the MEK camp in Iraq and taken to Canada.

++ Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh, write in Lobelog ‘False Flag Op In Albania Would Drive A Wedge Between The EU And Iran’. They warn that Pompeo’s Iran Action Group is looking for ways to engineer regime change against Iran and that the groundwork for a False Flag Op in Albania or Europe has already been done by the MEK.

August 31, 2018

September 2, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

McCain’s Foreign Policy Record

Sen. John McCain died from brain cancer over the weekend:

John S. McCain, the proud naval aviator who climbed from depths of despair as a prisoner of war in Vietnam to pinnacles of power as a Republican congressman and senator from Arizona and a two-time contender for the presidency, died on Saturday at his home in Arizona. He was 81.

McCain served in Congress for more than thirty years. In that time, he went from the Vietnam veteran who warned against an unwise entanglement in Lebanon to becoming the most vocal and predictable advocate for every bad military intervention under the sun. The longer he stayed in Washington, the worse he became. His career is nothing if not a cautionary tale to other would-be legislators. He specialized in matters of national security and foreign policy, and yet he had a remarkable knack for misjudging practically every major foreign policy issue of the last three decades.

McCain distinguished himself as a consistent proponent of unnecessary foreign wars in the name of American “leadership,” and the country was always worse off when the president heeded his recommendations. He was a leading cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq and intervention in Libya, and he was wrong about both. He was also a Kosovo war supporter and has been a steadfast defender of U.S. support for the Saudi war on Yemen. When Georgia escalated a conflict with Russia, he insanely proclaimed, “We are all Georgians” and gave the impression that he was willing to risk WWIII over a dispute that had nothing to do with us. Despite his constant demands for more “action,” the U.S. did not intervene in Syria as forcefully or as soon as he wanted. He was even once quoted praising the Saudis for their role in Syria. “Thank God for the Saudis,” he said. He was famously hawkish on Iran (“bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran,” he sang), and in recent years went so far as to jump on the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) bandwagon. This is a record of horrible judgment and even more horrible costs for the people in the countries affected by the policies he supported.

If McCain had his way, the U.S. would have been in even more wars for much longer than we already were, and even his admirers can’t deny that. For the last twenty years of his political career, McCain was an irrepressible champion of reckless U.S. meddling around the world. It was an enormous stroke of good fortune for the U.S. and the world that his 2008 presidential bid failed. If you believe that U.S. foreign policy is far too militarized, overreaching, and destructive, McCain did a great deal to make and keep it that way.

The one big thing that McCain got right in his Senate career was his opposition to torture. Because he had suffered from the use of torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he understandably had no patience for the euphemisms and rationalizations of his pro-torture colleagues. This was the most significant disagreement he had with his party, and in the end it is probably the only issue where his willingness to break with his party from time to time really mattered. McCain had the ability to put principle ahead of party on occasion. Unfortunately, he did not do so all that often, and when it came to foreign policy the principles he followed were usually very bad ones.

By Daniel Larison

September 2, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Albanian media Shqiptarja.com publishes Somayeh Mohammadi’s story

The following post republishes the story of Mostafa Mohammadi’s quest to free his daughter from the hands of MEK. The series of articles, originally published in 2006 by Stewart Bell in National Post, has now been translated into Albanian and published by one of the country’s leading newspapers, Shqiptarja.com. In 2006, MEK accused Stewart Bell of being ‘an agent of the Iranian regime’.

Somayeh Mohammadi

This summer, 2018, Mostafa travelled to Albania in another attempt to meet with his daughter away from MEK control. MEK responded aggressively, accusing Mostafa and his wife of being ‘agents of the Iranian regime’. MEK has also accused Albanian journalists, a Channel 4 film crew from the UK and another British journalist with The Guardian, of being ‘agents of the Iranian regime’. However, at no time did MEK allow Somayeh Mohammadi to leave the camp to meet independently with her family or anyone else. This has scandalized Albanian public opinion.

Following this is a document in Farsi giving background to this story, including hand written letters by Somayeh Mohammadi to her family and the Canadian authorities, asking for help to be brought out of the MEK camp in Iraq and taken to Canada. The post includes family photographs.

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Children Of ‘The Resistance’

September 1, 2018 0 comments

Graves of MEK members in a public graveyard in Tirana.

Missions of Nejat Society

False Flag Op In Albania Would Drive A Wedge Between The EU And Iran

President Trump’s floundering Iran policy was firmed up earlier this month when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a new ‘Iran Action Group’. According to Pompeo, “The Iran Action Group will be responsible [for] directing, reviewing, and coordinating all aspects of the State Department’s Iran-related activity, and will report directly to me.”

As the name indicates, action rather than diplomacy now tops the State Department’s agenda toward Iran. Action that will surely include increased sanctions, economic warfare, cyber warfare, inciting protest, and very possibly support for terrorist groups. Not a new repertoire. But Iran has proven remarkably vigilant and resilient in withstanding all these pressures, fending off various terrorist groups on its borders, some cities, and even an attack on the Majlis (parliament). More recently, attempts to subverteconomic protests in the country have come to nothing. Other means are called for.

As America pressures the European Union to line up behind its sanctions regime and end trade with Iran, there are indications that this could open another front for confronting Iran. The question for America’s anti-Iran pundits currently is how to engineer distance between Europe and Iran. One way would be if it could be demonstrated that Iranian terrorism has reached Europe itself, a theme that Pompeo himself addresses at virtually every Iran-related opportunity.

While rational observers recognise that any such activity would be political suicide for Iran, we are clearly not living in rational times. There are signs that the groundwork for a covert false-flag operation have been in place for some time that would blame Iran for an atrocity conducted outside its borders.

Such a possibility was hinted at in June when an Iranian diplomat was arrested in Germany over an alleged bomb plot on the eve of President Rouhani’s visit. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted “how convenient.” Iran claimed that the Belgian couple found to be behind the fake plot were Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) activists. The target for the bombing was the MEK rally in Paris which would then presumably be blamed on Iran. How convenient indeed.

That the MEK is named in this way is no surprise. While other terrorist groups have been contained by Iran, MEK has proven tenacious, due in main to the support it receives from Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the U.S. This is also due to its cult conditions which enslave and brainwash its members. But the fact that MEK is now based in Albania, far away from Iran’s border, might have doomed the group to obscurity if MEK’s violent regime change agenda didn’t so closely coincide with the desires of hawks in the Trump administration.

Trump, deliberately or unwittingly, has surrounded himself with MEK supporters. John Bolton, National Security Advisor, is a long-time MEK advocate and Rudy Giuliani, currently tackling Trump’s legal problems, has regularly spoken at MEK rallies. Now with former CIA man Pompeo as Secretary of State and taking a hard-line regime-change stance in all but words, all that all that remains is for an action plan to be put in place.

It could be that this is already taking shape in Albania where the MEK has deliberately curated a false narrative through its own websites that Iran is sending agents to attack and kill its members. This narrative is then repeated as established fact by political supporters and paid advocates.

In July, Pompeo repeated ‘news’ of the alleged bomb plot and also referenced the MEK-manufactured allegation that two retired Iranian journalists had been sent by Iran to conduct terrorism against them in Albania. It was MEK itself that falsely tipped off police to arrest the two innocent men. Building on this, Raymond Tanter, part of a cabal of mostly ex-CIA and former military officials who advocate for MEK, inserted this false information into a long article promoting the group MEK as bringers of peace and democracy to Iran. Nothing could be further from the truth.

MEK has a long history of covert as well as overt activities aimed at regime change against Iran. Over the years, when events were blamed on Iran, MEK often insinuated itself in various ways—as it did, for instance, in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. After extensive investigation, the primary testimony implicating Iran’s leadership came from four high-ranking intelligence officers from MEK—specifically, Hadi Roshan Ravan, the chief witness who not coincidentally also served as the head of MEK intelligence. In 2013, Israel arrested a Swedish Iranian man, Ali Mansouri, who “confessed” to be spying for Iran in Tel Aviv. He turned out to be an MEK member. MEK’s role in publicizing intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program and alleged complicity with Israel in the murder of Iranian nuclear scientists is widely known. Whether or not MEK was directly involved in many of such activities or not, its propagandizing role is indisputable.

Since arriving in Albania between 2013 and 2016, MEK has already shown itself to be aggressive, criminal, and dangerous. Recently a scandal erupted after a British Channel 4 film crew, headed by prominent journalist Lindsey Hilsum, was assaulted by MEK operatives while filming outside the MEK’s closed camp in Manez, Albania. A few days later, Aaron Merat, a journalist with The Guardian, was also subjected to an assault by MEK operatives during his investigations. MEK accused them of being “agents of the Iranian regime.”

This news, shocking as it is, did not find an audience outside Albania. So far, so local. But it demonstrated the ease and impunity with which MEK uses violence when the outside world encroaches on its secrecy. Albanians were even more shocked that their security services tried to hide these events.

Interestingly the group’s self-portrayal of victimhood largely serves its own internal dynamics. MEK moved 2000+ members to a closed camp in Manez to prevent more members leaving the group. MEK leaders claim that Iran has sent various intelligence agents to Albania plot against them and kill them and the camp is their only protection. While this serves to frighten its own members and stiffen their thirty-year resolve to continue their struggle, it also fits the kind of false narrative that leads to the kind of false-flag operations that could be blamed on Iran.

Former CIA Director Pompeo’s Iran Action Group is a sub-group in the State Department answering only to him. This also favors the kind of covert operation with which the MEK is only too willing and able to engage. Worryingly, the attacks on foreign journalists could serve to escalate and accelerate secret plans already in place for a false-flag operation in Albania which would be blamed on Iran. The first victims would be MEK members. The next targets could be Albanian. And this time, in order to convince Europe that Iran is a dangerous sponsor of terrorism, people would die.

Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh,

September 1, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Who Will Stop Trump From Tweeting Us into War With Iran?

Donald Trump may be taking us to war on Iran and those who should be trying to stop him–from Congress to the grassroots–are too obsessed with Russia to even pay attention. Trump is well aware that a war with Iran would be a good diversion from his domestic and Russia travails, and could even help Republicans in the November elections. In 2012, when President Obama was down in the polls, Trump tweeted: “Looks like he’ll have to start a war or major conflict to win. Don’t put it past him!” So we certainly shouldn’t put it past Donald Trump.

On July 22, just after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had wrapped up a speech in which he compared Iran’s leaders to the Mafia, Trump sent out this threatening tweet, in all caps, to Iran’s President Rouhani.

“NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”

Trump’s twitter tirade was in response to comments by President Rouhani warning that a US war with Iran would be the “mother of all wars” and that Trump should not “play with the lion’s tail,” and earlier comments implying that if US sanctions stopped Iran from exporting oil, Iran could close down the Strait of Hormuz, a slender waterway at the mouth of the Gulf through which 20 percent of the world’s oil is shipped.

Trump’s explosive tweet was reminiscent of the “fire and fury” comments he directed toward Kim Jong Un before he started negotiating with the North Korean leader, but it’s unlikely that this twitterstorm will be the prelude to talks with Iran.

In the case of Korea, South Korea was pushing for talks and there was no significant US lobby trying stop them. With Iran, both Saudi Arabia and Israel have been trying to suck the US into their decades-old feud with Iran. They both opposed the Iran nuclear deal. Israel has been advocating for the US military to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, even though Israel has several hundred nuclear weapons of its own and Iran has none. Saudi Arabia insists that Iran is spreading terrorism throughout the region, even though the Saudis have spent billions of dollars spreading their intolerant version of Islam, Wahhabism. And let us not forget the terror of the Saudi bombing of Yemen, which has led to the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophe.

Lobby groups from AIPAC to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies have also been stoking the conflict. So has the dissident group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). The MEK, a cult-like group that has killed Iranians and Americans alike and was on the US terrorist list until 2012, is hated inside Iran for having sided with Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran in 1980. In recent years, the MEK has spent lavishly (with what is rumored to be Saudi money) to acquire political support from liberals like Howard Dean to conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, both of whom were key speakers at the group’s May gathering in Paris. But the MEK’s most influential cheerleader is John Bolton, who has spoken at their meetings eight times, for which he was well compensated. Bolton considers the MEK a legitimate opposition movement even though they have absolutely no base of support inside Iran.

Trump delighted this dangerous melange of Iran opponents by withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal on May 8th, despite Iran’s compliance with its side of the bargain, as continuously certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In defiance of the deal’s five cosponsors—Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia—the Trump administration unilaterally restored sanctions, which will go into effect in two waves during August and November. The devastating sanctions not only prohibit US companies from doing business in Iran, but will also punish foreign companies and banks. Despite efforts by European governments to shield their companies, the companies themselves–from oil giant Total to airplane manufacturer Airbus—do not want to take the risk and are already pulling the plug on trade deals they had negotiated with Iran. The value of the rial has plummeted this year by forty per cent. With the economy reeling from sanctions and the threat of war, along with mismanagement and corruption, Iranians have taken to the streets in protest.

The Administration’s goal now is to cut off the Islamic Republic’s ability to export oil, its prime source of revenue and foreign exchange. These particularly crippling sanctions will go into effect on November 4th.

The Trump Administration believes that its policy of choking Tehran economically and supporting internal dissent can topple the government. “We are now very realistic in being able to see an end of the regime in Iran. The collapse of the Islamic Republic of Iran is around the corner,” Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani shouted triumphantly to the cheering crowd at the June 2018 gathering of the MEK’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

An overthrow of the regime, with no entity ready to take over, would not only lead to chaos internally but could quickly spread throughout the region. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its allies, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, are ready to attack both Israel and US troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and on the myriad of military bases surrounding Iran. The Iranian government has already threatened to block oil shipments, a move that could rock the entire global economy.

Many Iranians we talk to desperately want to change their government, but not with US intervention. They look around the region in horror, seeing how US militarism has contributed to massive chaos, misery, and death in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Palestine. They believe their best option is internal reform.

As a group of prominent Iranian-Americans stated in an open letter to Secretary Pompeo, “If you truly wish to help the people of Iran, lift the travel ban [although no Iranian has ever been involved in a terrorist attack on US soil, Iran is included in Trump’s Muslim ban], adhere to the Iran nuclear deal and provide the people of Iran the economic relief they were promised and have eagerly awaited for three years. Those measures, more than anything, will provide the Iranian people with the breathing space to do what only they can do – push Iran towards democracy through a gradual process that achieves the benefits of freedom and liberty without turning Iran into another Iraq or Syria.”

Before all hell breaks loose with the Trump wrecking crew taking us into a cataclysmic conflict with Iran, Congress and the American public better get their heads out of the Russiagate sand and rush to stop them.

by Medea Benjamin , counterpunch.org

Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK and the human right organization Global Exchange. Follow her on twitter at @MedeaBenjamin

August 29, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

Iran warns Saudi Arabia of consequences if activists executed

Iran’s High Council of Human Rights has warned Saudi Arabia of the consequences of its”cruelties,”including reported plans to execute several human rights activists.

According to New York-based Human Rights Watch, Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for five rights activists from Qatif in the kingdom’s Shia-majority Eastern Province.

Iran’s High Council of Human Rights”seriously warns the Saudi rulers about the consequences of these clear cruelties and crimes against the oppressed people in Qatif and other right-seeking and anti-oppression activists,”it said in a statement.

The council, a subdivision of Iran’s Judiciary, also stressed”the necessity for international bodies, especially the UN and the Human Rights Council, to show sensitivity and pursue the issue seriously.”

Saudi Arabia has accused these activists of inciting mass protests in the oil-rich Eastern Province, with human rights groups saying the execution threat is a calculated bid to stifle dissent.

Israa al-Ghomgham, who has documented the protests in Eastern Province since they began in 2011, would be the first woman activist to face the death sentence for rights-related work. She was arrested at her home along with her husband Musa al-Hashem in December 2015.

The Iranian council described reports of the Saudi prosecutor seeking capital punishment for the couple and other activists as”very regretful and distressing given the country’s disastrous record”in the past.

In January 2016, Saudi Arabia executed prominent cleric Nimr al-Nimr, the most vocal critic of the dynasty among Shia Muslims, who had come to be seen as a leader of the community’s younger activists.

In executing Nimr, the kingdom defied an international outcry and warnings by many rights groups and governments, touching off a diplomatic crisis which sent relations with Iran into a downward spiral which continues to this day.

“Saudi Arabia’s policy of cracking down on Muslim thinkers and activists fighting tyranny on terrorism charges is absurd and unacceptable,” the statement by the Iranian rights body said.

“Should terrorists be confronted, current Saudi rulers are the prime suspects, who bear responsibility for destroying the lives and possessions of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the region,” it said.

“Who has founded, armed and unleashed al-Qaeda, Daesh and similar criminals to massacre innocent people? Who is publicly supporting, politically and financially, perverted and roaming killers such as Mujahedin Khalq Organization?”it added.

The notorious MKO group is responsible for killing thousands of Iranian civilians and several officials since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Senior Saudi officials, including former spy chief Prince Turki al-Faisal, have attended annual meetings held by the terrorist group, raising the stakes in the kingdom’s confrontational ways with the Islamic Republic.

In its statement, Iran’s High Council of Human Rights said the US and major European governments, which arm the kingdom and assist Saudi Arabia’s invasion of Yemen, are complicit in the atrocities and should be held to account.

August 29, 2018 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Rajavi plays the role of Shaban Jafari in ‘Action Group”

Earlier this month the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the creation of the Iran Action Group (IAG), whose stated goal is to”change the Iranian regime’s behaviour”. In response, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, said that any US effort to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran was bound to fail, just days after the announcement. [1]
Zarif made the comments in a Twitter post on Sunday, on the anniversary of a US-backed coup that toppled Iran’s first democratically elected government in 1953. [2]
“65 years ago today, the US overthrew the popularly elected democratic government of Dr. Mossadegh, restoring the dictatorship and subjugating Iranians for the next 25 years,”Zarif said.”Now an ‘Action Group’ dreams of doing the same through pressure, misinformation &demagoguery. Never again.”[3]
In fact, several high profiles in the US administration have close ties with the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ the Cult of Rajavi) and so determined to the overthrow of the Iranian Government. Caitlin Johnstone of the medium writes about John Bolton’s aggressive advocacy for the MKO, “One year ago, the actual, literal psychopath who would soon be named Trump’s National Security Advisor appeared at an MEK rally and declared that the cult was a “a viable opposition to the rule of the ayatollahs.” [4]
“I had said for over 10 years since coming to these events, that the declared policy of the United States of America should be the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran,” Bolton proclaimed. “The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change, and therefore the only solution is to change the regime itself. And that’s why, before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran!” [5]
Johnstone states that Bolton’s sentiments were echoed with remarkable similarity by Trump’s lawyer Rudolph Giuliani at the MKO’s annual gathering in July. “The mullahs must go, the ayatollah must go, and they must be replaced by a democratic government which Madam Rajavi represents,” Giuliani said in reference to MEK cult leader Maryam Rajavi, adding, “Freedom is right around the corner … Next year I want to have this convention in Tehran!” [6]

Thus, it seems that Javad Zarif is right. The US behavior has not changed since the 1953 coup. At the time, the CIA tried to get mobsters hired and paid them good money. Shaban Jafari aka “Brainless” was a violent street thug who became a trusted henchman of the Shah. He was one of the leading mobsters who got his share of money for street actions and slogans against Mossadegh. [7]

Today, Maryam Rajavi sounds to be the modern version of Shaban Jafary and his gang. Moreover, the MKO has absolutely more potentials to instigate riots and violence that Shaban jafari did.

The MKO’s record of violent acts includes the entire range of violence from street clashes using knives, brass knuckles, and different weapons including bullets and tanks to suppress people.Listing the numerous terrorist acts of the MKO, the freelance journalist, Ivan Kesic asserts that the MKO is worse than ISIS and it has had more victims than the ISIS has. His recent article on the American Herald Tribune recounts the MKO’s role in the genocide of Iraqi Kurds, the group’s campaign of bombing against the Iranian civilians and government officials as well as the assassination of the US nationals working in Iran during the 1970s. [8]

However, the most investigated part of his article describes the MKO’s simultaneous attacks against the Iranian diplomatic interests in 13 countries in 1992. The move indicates the MKO’s motivation and potential to bully whenever it wants. Ivan Kesic writes:

“In April 1992, they invaded Iranian diplomatic missions in thirteen Northern American and Western European countries, seizing hostages and wrecking offices in a wave of coordinated attacks. In New York, five men armed with knives invaded the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, took three hostages, smashed furniture and computers in a two-hour rampage behind chained doors. Two of the hostages escaped when the police broke through a back door, and the third was released unharmed when the intruders surrendered to police negotiators. In Ottawa, Iran’s Embassy was attacked and pillaged by about 35people armed with sticks and hammers. And in Europe, the MEK members stormed Iranian embassies and consulates in Bonn, Hamburg, The Hague, Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bern, Paris and London. Scores of demonstrators were arrested, and many of the Iranian missions were extensively damaged, some by firebombs. There were many injuries in clashes that erupted, but luckily no deaths.

“In Germany, several police officers were hurt as the authorities struggled to arrest about 50 members who occupied the seven-story Iranian Embassy in Bonn for two hours. The angry mob hurled official papers and furniture from the windows during the rampage. The Iranian Consulate in Hamburg also was besieged with demonstrators hurling rocks and firebombs. About 20 protesters were arrested, and four people were treated for smoke inhalation and shock. They also broke into Iran’s Embassy in The Hague after a car rammed through the compound’s gate. Protesters armed with metal bars and sticks rushed through, entered the building and caused extensive damage. In Stockholm, 50 MEK members set two Iranian Embassy buildings and six cars on fire. The Ambassador’s wife and two children were treated for shock, and one embassy employee suffered burns. One embassy employee was injured as invaders ransacked the Iranian Embassy in Oslo, and several others in the embassy in Copenhagen where MEK members smashed windows. They also hurled rocks, smashed windows and tore down the Iranian flag at the embassy in London, and a firebomb was later thrown at the London offices of Iran Air, causing damage but no injuries. Later in the 1990s, Iranian diplomats were also attacked in Denmark, Austria, and Italy. Western diplomats were also targeted; in August 2003 MEK bombed the United Nations compound in Iraq, prompting UN withdrawal from the country.” [9]

Maryam Rajavi was once Saddam’s operative tool to suppress Iraqi uprisings. Her notorious command at the time –“Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”—has been widely recalled by defectors of the group. And, regarding the role of the MKO agents in the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientists under the command of the Israeli Mossad, their leader is definitely capable of being a much more aggressive and violent CIA agent than Shaban Jafary was.
Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] Aljazeera, ‘Never again’: Zarif calls US group coup attempt bound to fail, August 19, 2018

[2] ibid

[3] ibid

[4] Johnstone, Caitlin, That Time Hillary Clinton Removed John Bolton’s Favorite Terror Cult from the Terrorist List, The Medium, July 3, 2018

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7]Keyoush, Banafsheh, Saudi Arabian and Iran: Friends or foes?, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, p. 69.

[8] Kesic, Ivan, Worse than ISIL: The Dark Past of Mujahedin-e Khalq Terrorist Group, The American Herald Tribune, June 30, 2018

[9] ibid

August 28, 2018 0 comments