Ms. Homeira Mohamamd Nejad; the MEK former member
Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MEK has abandoned celebration of everything except two

Homeira Mohammad Nejad from the Women’s Association wrote an analytical article in which she explains that nowadays the MEK has abandoned celebration of everything except two events – 30th June (marking the self-immolations of 2004) and 20thOctober (the anniversary of Maryam Rajavi’s internal ‘election’ as president-elect of Iran). Everything else has been abandoned.

Ms. Homeira Mohamamd Nejad; the MEK former member

There are two reasons. One is that people are already leaving in droves, so the group can’t afford to revive or to promote the idea of armed struggle for fear of alienating more. The group is now moving further toward lobbying rather than raising any hopes for active participation in regime change.

The other reason is they are seriously afraid of the backlash of the Albanian people who don’t like them at all. The MEK has chosen these two events and done away with its logos and slogans and only promotes pictures of Maryam Rajavi in the hope people will forget who they really are and regard them as benign. This behaviour is obviously not of their choice. The MEK is instructed by its benefactors, such as the Saudis, what to do so that they will be paid.

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Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 210

++ Homeira Mohammad Nejad from the Women’s Association wrote an analytical article in which she explains that nowadays the MEK has abandoned celebration of everything except two events – 30th June (marking the self-immolations of 2004) and 20thOctober (the anniversary of Maryam Rajavi’s internal ‘election’ as president-elect of Iran). Everything else has been abandoned. There are two reasons. One is that people are already leaving in droves, so the group can’t afford to revive or to promote the idea of armed struggle for fear of alienating more. The group is now moving further toward lobbying rather than raising any hopes for active participation in regime change. The other reason is they are seriously afraid of the backlash of the Albanian people who don’t like them at all. The MEK has chosen these two events and done away with its logos and slogans and only promotes pictures of Maryam Rajavi in the hope people will forget who they really are and regard them as benign. This behaviour is obviously not of their choice. The MEK is instructed by its benefactors, such as the Saudis, what to do so that they will be paid.

++ Faramarz Dadras, a political analyst, has posted on his Facebook how sensitive the issue of Massoud Rajavi’s death is for the MEK. He says that apart from this being a product of its cult behaviour, there is credible information that a lot of money is involved and the MEK doesn’t want to announce his death because of this inheritance. His son and wife and wider family are squabbling over the money. This is most unfair, writes Dadras, because those who love him – the members – are not being given the chance to mourn him.

++ Sahar Family Foundation has been inundated by articles and commentary by former MEK members in Albania – with and without names. One of them to mention is titled ‘Tormenting Us with Our Bread’. The writer says that ex-members complain “our bread is in their hands and they are playing with us over that, offering it and withdrawing it with conditions”. The ex-members blame the Americans saying “we know that they know the MEK are doing this to us. They are holding us hostage, saying ‘do as you are told for your money, if you don’t you will not be allowed to eat or have a place to sleep’.”

++ In Iran, Habilian Association published a piece by Khosro Ghanbari Tehrani – famous among the founders of Iran’s Intelligence Agency after the Revolution. He has historically been involved in many areas but now teaches in university. His argument is called ‘The First Bent Brick’. He explains that the MEK was founded on warped principles and actions and therefore Rajavi was able to take advantage of that to build his own warped empire.

In English:

++ Mehr News and Press TV report the reaction of Iran’s Judiciary Chief, Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli Larijani, to renewed American sanctions. He says that after thirty years of such “threadbare and futile” actions, “US congress has turned into an automated machine of passing sanctions against Iran”. Larijani says he believes such actions against the Iranian nation results in greater unity and resistance against these pressures. He also dismissed the latest report by UN human rights rapporteur Asma Jahangir saying it reflects the views of Iran’s enemies, including the MEK.

++ Philip Giraldi writes ‘The Rise of MEK/NCRI in Washington: Pay Off The Right People and You Are No Longer A Terrorist’. The article in the American Herald Tribune describes how money has been used to whitewash the MEK’s history. He concludes, “The emergence of NCRI [aka MEK] at this time is just another fool’s game with the usual Washington crowd queuing up for a bad cause because they are both lining their pockets and thinking they are helping Israel by punishing Iran.  In any event it is a poor bargain for the rest of us, but that hardly seems to matter anymore.”

++ Nejat Society in Semnan, Iran held a meeting in which five MEK formers signed a petition to bring Massoud and Maryam Rajavi to justice and face a fair international court for their crimes against humanity. They asked the UNHCR and the Albanian government to facilitate visits for MEK members in Tirana by their families.

++ Yuram Abdullah Weiler writes in the American Herald Tribune that under Donald Trump, Iran is again being accused through the US media of covertly pursuing nuclear arms. “Fox News has announced that the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)… has once again managed to obtain ‘intelligence’ relating to a covert nuclear weapons program hidden skillfully from the peering eyes of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors.” Weiler exposes Alireza Jafarzadeh – a Fox News ‘consultant’ – as a long-term member of the terrorist MEK whose previous ‘revelations’ of Iran’s activities have been found to be fake.

 November 03, 2017

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Ali Reza Jafarzade

The Iran Nuclear “Threat”: Trump’s Recycled Fake News

“The Fox program [of May 8, 2005] on Iran is simply the latest example of how the U.S. media has traded political favoritism to the White House, and its fierce demonization of Iran, for objective news.”—Kaveh L. Afrasiabi [1]

After more than a decade of dire warnings by Washington’s neocon war hawks of the Iranian nuclear “threat,” most of the civilized world rejoiced when the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was signed by Iran and the P5+1 in 2015. Hopes for gradually thawing relations between the Islamic Republic and U.S. were short-lived, however, with the ascendancy to the White House of Donald Trump, who unceasingly railed against the so-called Iran nuclear deal during his campaign. Now once again, Iran is being accused by the U.S. media of covertly pursuing nuclear arms. [2]

In an exclusive article, Fox News has announced that the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a political front organization for the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK, MKO), has once again managed to obtain “intelligence” relating to a covert nuclear weapons program hidden skillfully from the peering eyes of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors. According to Fox News, the NCRI report, titled “Iran’s Nuclear Core: Uninspected Military Sites” and conveniently released days before the expected “decertification” of Iran by U.S. president Trump, claims agents of the MeK operating inside Iran have not only confirmed the existence of a covert nuclear weapons program in the Islamic Republic, but also have discovered an additional secret military base dedicated to building nuclear bombs.

While this may seem believable to poorly-informed Americans, the information bears a striking resemblance to the secret weapons facilities allegedly discovered by MeK agents inside Iran in 2002. In fact, the same person quoted in the Fox article, Alireza Jafarzadeh, wrote in 2005, “Based on information received from inside the country, the Iranian regime has started an extensive strategic plan in order to build tunnels and secret centers across the country, in order to hide its nuclear and missiles projects.” [3] Aside from being a Fox News commentator and “terrorism expert,” and he should be, given his background dating back to 1985 with the terrorist MeK cult, [4] Jafarzadeh is also president of Strategic Policy Consulting, which claims to “provide a wide range of consultancy on issues related to terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, Iranian internal and external affairs, as well as Iran’s role in Iraq.” [5]

Jafarzadeh gained notoriety in August 2002 when he held a press conference to present “evidence” of a nuclear weapons program in Iran. In his 2006 book titled “The Iran Threat,” which reads like a pulp-fiction spy thriller, he admitted that he has worked as a lobbyist for the MeK and even managed to convince 219 members of the U.S. House of Representatives to sign a statement in support of the NCRI. Jaferzadeh was particularly proud that George W. Bush gave the credit for discovering Iran’s “concealed nuclear program” to the NCRI, which Bush called “a dissident group.” [6]

The similarity of the current (2017) Fox News article and the 2005 press release is striking. For example, both speak of large underground tunnels: the present Fox News report speaks of “scores of large underground tunnels,” [7] while the 2005 press release reports on “large scale secret tunnels for weapons system [sic].” [8] Likewise, the same claims alleging that the military complex at Parchin, southeast of Tehran, houses a number of secret facilities supposedly used in the ongoing development and manufacture of nuclear weapons. In total, four locations are named: Natanz, Arak, Lavizan-Shian, and Parchin, which the NCRI claims “with high degrees of certainty” to be in some way involved with nuclear weapons research and development.

Jafarzadeh and Fox News have a long history of cooperation going back to 2003 when the self-proclaimed expert accused Iran of smuggling heavy weapons into Iraq “using trucks who [sic] were carrying vegetables and fruits, buses or utility vehicles, and they have been hidden in villages and agricultural fields to be used by them.” [9] More to the point, Jafarzadeh was already pushing regime change at that time, calling the Islamic Republic “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” advising the U.S. “to step up pressure” on Tehran, and insisting Iranians by the thousands were demonstrating “for regime change” and an “end to theocracy in Iran.” [10]

In an interesting 2005 Fox News interview pitting Joe Cirincione, director for Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, against Jafarzadeh, the latter claimed to have new evidence from unnamed sources proving Iran’s peaceful civilian nuclear activities were a cover for a covert nuclear weapons effort. Citing information that Iran was developing a neutron initiator using polonium-210 and beryllium-9, Jafarzadeh claimed “Iran is actually working to develop a nuclear trigger, which is a necessary part of building the bomb.” To his credit, Cirincione, referring to the NCRI, emphasized, “The last couple of exposures that they made haven’t really born out.” Furthermore, Cirincione estimated that Iran was at least five years away from making an atomic fission bomb and pointed out that “after two years of inspections we haven’t found anything actually weapons related work.” [11]

Far from being new technology, modulated polonium-beryllium initiation to trigger neutron chain reactions was researched in the 1940s in the early stages of the U.S. atomic bomb program. [12] Also worth mentioning is the fact that India’s first atomic bomb tested on May 18, 1974 used a polonium-beryllium initiator almost identical to the one used in “Gadget,” the first U.S. nuclear device to be yield-tested on July 16, 1945 near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Away from Washington’s watchful eye, Indian scientists took two years to master manufacturing methods and handling techniques for the large amounts of polonium required to produce this type of neutron initiator. [13]

For Iran to attempt to amass the polonium and beryllium needed for a trigger would create an immediately discernable warning sign of proliferation. To date, no such credible sign has been detected. Furthermore, polonium-210 must be produced on an ongoing basis since it has a half -life of only four years, rendering any polonium-beryllium initiator ineffective within that period of time less than that. Even the “experts” associated with the NCRI in 2005 placed the lifespan of an alleged Iranian-designed initiator at 6 months maximum. [14] The point here is that any activity of this sort in Iran would certainly have been detected by IAEA inspectors long ago.

Unfortunately, Jafarzadeh and his ilk seem to have found a receptive audience in Washington, for Trump himself derogatorily referred to Iran thirteen times in his recent address to the United Nations General Assembly. Among his more amusing assertions, Trump stated, “Rather than use its resources to improve Iranian lives, its oil profits go to fund Hezbollah and other terrorists that kill innocent Muslims and attack their peaceful Arab and Israeli neighbors.” Noting the Saudi war on Yemen and the Israeli entity’s ongoing usurpation of Palestinian lands should suffice to discredit Trump’s remarks in reference to “peaceful Arab and Israeli neighbors,” [15] but what of the allegations of Iran’s support for “terrorists?”

Simultaneously funding an ongoing nuclear weapons program, if Iran indeed had one, as well as “terrorists,” as Trump has accused, would absorb a lot of money, and Iran is not awash in cash. With delays in integrating Iranian banks into the global banking system, Iran’s non-oil sector growth has been less than one percent, [16] leaving the country dependent on petroleum revenues subject to the volatile crude oil market and its persistently stagnant prices in the marginally profitable $50/bbl range. Yet somehow Iran has managed to reduce the poverty rate among its citizens from 13.1 percent in 2009 to 8.1 percent in 2013. [17] Obviously, this achievement of improving Iranian lives could not have been accomplished by diverting oil profits to nuclear weapons programs or funding extremist groups, as the Saudis have done and continue to do by pouring billions into spreading Wahhabism. [18]

Fox News has been quick to note that Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the NCRI, welcomed Trump’s bellicose remarks, which were in line with the Iranian people’s alleged desire for regime change. While this image of Iranians writhing under theocratic tyranny has much credence among U.S. pundits, the reality on the ground in Iran is quite the opposite. Within Iran, there is much popular support for the country’s nuclear program, and Iranians view their expanding homegrown nuclear technology with great pride. [19] Furthermore, surrounded by U.S. military bases in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as U.S. military partnerships with Georgia and Azerbaijan, Iran rightly considers the U.S. to be its number one security threat. [20] Finally, it must be understood that with literally thousands of victims of its terror attacks inside Iran, the MeK has absolutely no credibility among the Iranian people as any sort of an opposition movement. [21]

Former political science professor at Tehran University, Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, warned, “A U.S. policy based on a caricature of Iran’s realities is obviously self-disserving.” [22] Nevertheless, the current caricature of a U.S. president residing in the White House seems determined to do just that based on recycled fake news about Iran supplied by Jafarzadeh and aired on Fox News.

Endnotes

[1] Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, Iran’s Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction (Charleston, SC: Booksurge LLC, 2006), 101.

[2] Hollie McKay, “Iran’s secret sites linked to nuclear weapons development revealed,” Fox News, October 10, 2017, accessed October 11, 2017, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/10/10/irans-secret-sites-linked-to-nuclear-weapons-development-revealed.html.

[3] “Statement by Alireza Jafarzadeh,” Joint Press Conference of Nuclear Control Institute & Iran Policy Committee, National Press Club, September 16, 2005, accessed October 11, 2017, http://spcwashington.com/?p=277.

[4] Alireza Jafarzadeh, The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), xvii.

[5] Strategic Policy Consulting, Inc. website, accessed October 12, 2017, http://spcwashington.com/?page_id=225.

[6] Alireza Jafarzadeh, ibid., xi.

[7] Hollie McCay, ibid.

[8] Statement by Alireza Jafarzadeh, ibid.

[9] “Iran’s sponsor of terrorism in Iraq,” Fox News transcript on Strategic Policy Consulting, Inc. website, November 20, 2003, accessed October 12, 2017, http://www.spconsulting.us/fox-latest.pdf.

[10] “IAEA Resolution on Iran Atomic Program,” Fox News transcript on Strategic Policy Consulting, Inc. website, November 30, 2003, accessed October 12, 2017, http://www.spconsulting.us/fox11-30.pdf.

[11] “Is Iran Nuke Program More Advanced Than We Thought?” Fox News transcript on Strategic Policy Consulting, Inc. website, February 05, 2005, accessed October 12, 2017, http://spconsulting.us/FoxNewsLive5Feb05.htm.

[12] Richard R. Paternoster, “Nuclear Weapon Proliferation Indicators and Observables,” Los Alamos National Laboratory, December 1992, 14-15, accessed October 12, 2017, https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/la-12430-ms.pdf.

[13] “Smiling Buddha: 1974: India’s Nuclear Weapons Program,” Nuclear Weapons Archive, November 8, 2001, accessed October 12, 2017, http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/India/IndiaS.miling.html

[14] Mohammad Mohaddessin, “Project to Build Neutron Initiator, the Trigger to Fission Chain Reaction for Nuclear Bomb,” Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control,  February 3, 2005, accessed October 12, 2017, http://www.iranwatch.org/library/ncri-press-conference-irans-project-build-neutron-initiator-2-3-05.

[15] Donald Trump, “Remarks by President Trump to the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly,” The White House, September 19, 2017, accessed October 12, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/09/19/remarks-president-trump-72nd-session-united-nations-general-assembly.

[16] “Iran’s Economic Outlook- April 2017,” The World Bank, accessed October 12, 2017, http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/iran/publication/economic-outlook-april-2017.

[17] “Iran overview,” The World Bank, accessed October 12, 2017, http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/iran/overview.

[18] Editorial Board, “Fighting, While Funding, Extremists,” The New York Times, June 19, 2017, accessed October 12, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/opinion/saudi-arabia-qatar-isis-terrorism.html.

[19] Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, ibid., 3.

[20] Seyed Hossein Mousavian, Iran and the United States: An Insider’s View on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014), 272.

[21] Seyed Hossein Mousavian, ibid., 77-82.

[22] Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, ibid., 9.

By Yuram Abdullah Weiler, American Herald Tribune

Yuram Abdullah Weiler is a former engineer educated in mathematics turned writer and political critic who has written over 130 articles on Islam, social justice, economics, and politics focusing on the Middle East and U.S. policies.

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Iran

Iran: Asma Jahangir report is a rehash of Mojahedin Khalq terrorists propaganda

UN rights report reflects views of Iran’s enemies: Judiciary chief

Iranian Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani has dismissed a recent report by a UN rights rapporteur against the Islamic Republic, saying it reflects the views of the country’s enemies.

Addressing a meeting with high-ranking Iranian judiciary officials in Tehran on Monday, Amoli Larijani added that the report contained rehashed claims and allegations against the Islamic establishment and simply quoted anti-Islamic Republic sources and the anti-Iran terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).

He added that the report supported those individuals who had been tried and convicted of espionage and also the MKO elements who had carried out various acts of terror against the Iranian people.

The top Iranian judiciary official strongly criticized the West’s double-standard approaches in dealing with the issue of human rights in Iran and said while different resolutions have been adopted against the Islamic Republic, Western countries have prevented the adoption of resolutions by world bodies against the Israeli regime or the “child-killing” Saudi regime.

“The US and Europe … support a spy, but keep silent about the mass killings in Yemen and the blockade of Gaza and heavy bombardments [of innocent people],” Amoli Larijani added.

Asma Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, submitted her report to the world body on Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Jahangir claimed that there had been little change in the human situation in Iran over the past year.

She also alleged the harassment of journalists in Iran had intensified, claiming that the progress on women’s rights was extremely slow.

Jahangir stated that she did not attempt to assess the impact of sanctions on human rights in Iran in her report, because she had not been allowed to visit the country.

Iran says it will welcome Jahangir if she wants to visit the country provided that human rights rapporteurs would also be appointed for the other 192 member countries of United Nations.

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Maryam Rajavi and Giuliani
Mujahedin Khalq 's Terrorism

The Rise of MEK/NCRI in Washington: Pay Off The Right People and You Are No Longer A Terrorist

If you want to change a group of terrorists who have killed American overseas into something that appears to be much more benign, all you have to do is pay off the right people in Washington. With enough money, you can even open a nice plush lobbying office on Pennsylvania Avenue in the District of Columbia, not too far from the White House and Capitol Hill.

One-time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been rightly blamed for the ill-conceived and badly bungled “regime change” in Libya in 2011 that eventually led to her mishandling of the resulting blowback in Benghazi, but one of her greatest failings just might have involved the piece of paper she signed when she removed the Mujaheddin e Khalq (MEK) group from the State Department list of “designated terrorist organizations” in September 2012.

How is it possible that the bad judgment demonstrated in the Libyan fiasco that created a failed state, a humanitarian disaster, a migrant crisis, armed terrorists and ultimately produced the murder of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans compare with a signature on a piece of paper?  It is because that signature put in place one of the elements that will most likely in the near future lead to a far more disastrous war for the United States than was Libya. MEK, now labeled the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), has become a principal voice of the war party that is now seeking to attack Iran, a role similar to that played by Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress in his disseminating of lies in the lead up to the catastrophic invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The tale of the rehabilitation and rise of MEK/NCRI is a subset of the ongoing corruption of America’s political culture, best illustrated by the fact that even national security is now up for sale, enabling a terrorist group to transform itself into a “resistance movement” and eventually be labeled “freedom fighters.”

How did this happen as MEK was on the State Department roster of foreign terrorist organizations since the list was established in 1997?  Its inclusion derived from its having killed six Americans in the 1970s, its participation in the U.S. Embassy hostage-taking and from its record of extreme violence both inside and outside Iran since that time. When I was a CIA trainee our course included a simulation of the horrific attack on U.S. Air Force Officers in Tehran in 1973 that killed two colonels.

MEK is widely regarded as a terrorist cult headed by a bizarre husband and wife team Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. Its members are required to be celibate and are subjected to extensive brainwashing, physical torture, severe beatings even unto death, and prolonged solitary confinement if they question the leadership.  One scholar who has studied them describes their beliefs as a “weird combination of Marxism and Islamic fundamentalism.”

With the sharp turn of the Trump Administration against Iran, NCRI is now finding an audience , telling the American public that Iran is “cheating” on the nuclear deal.  It also tells us that “Iran’s nuclear weapons program has far from halted” and has claimed to identify four major sites that “with a high degree of certainty” have been involved in various aspects of the allegedly ongoing nuclear weapons project. This has led Jillian Mele of Fox News to declare, falsely, that “It appears [Iran’s nuclear] weapons program is fully operational.”

The CIA has in the past recruited MEK/NCRI agents to enter into Iran and report on nuclear facilities, but Israel’s Mossad is the group’s principal employer. Agents, recruited and trained by Israel, have killed a number of Iranian nuclear scientists and officials.  The group appears to have ample financial resources, places full page ads in major US newspapers, and is also known to pay hefty fees to major political figures who are willing to speak publicly on its behalf.  The group claims to want regime change in Iran to restore democracy to the country, an odd assertion as it itself has no internal democracy and is loathed by nearly all Iranians.

Because MEK/NCRI is a resource being used by Tel Aviv in its clandestine war against Iran, it is perhaps inevitable that many friends of Israel in the United States actively campaigned to have the group removed from the terrorism list so that it could, ironically, have a free hand to continue to terrorize Iran.  Indeed, neocons at their various think tanks and publications as well as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee all recommended delisting the group and continue to support it. Prominent American Jews to include Elie Wiesel and Alan Dershowitz have been advocates for the group in spite of its record of terrorism.

Multi-million dollar contracts with Washington lobbying firms experienced at “working” congress backed up by handsome speaking fees have induced many prominent Americans to join the chorus supporting NCRI. Prior to 2012, speaking fees for the group started at $15,000 and went up from there. Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell reported more than $150,000 in honoraria. Rudy Giuliani has been paid generously for years at $20,000 per appearance for brief, twenty-minute speeches. Bear in mind that MEK was a listed terrorist group at the time and accepting money from it to promote its interests should have constituted material support of terrorism.

The group’s well-connected friends have included prominent neocons like John Bolton and ex-CIA Directors James Woolsey, Michael Hayden and Porter Goss as well as former Generals Anthony Zinni, Peter Pace, Wesley Clark, and Hugh Shelton. Traditional conservatives close to the Trump Administration like Newt Gingrich, Fran Townsend and Elaine Chao are also fans of NCRI. Townsend in particular, as a national security specialist, has appeared on television to denounce Iran, calling its actions “acts of war” without indicating that she has received money from an opposition group.

The emergence of NCRI at this time is just another fool’s game with the usual Washington crowd queuing up for a bad cause because they are both lining their pockets and thinking they are helping Israel by punishing Iran.  In any event it is a poor bargain for the rest of us, but that hardly seems to matter anymore.

By Philip Giraldi, American Herald Tribune

Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests.

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Former members of the MEK

MKO Defectors’ meeting in Semnan

Former members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO, MEK, the Cult of Rajavi, and PMOI) called for the trial of the group leaders, for crimes against humanity.

Five former members of the MKO met in the office of Nejat Society in Semnan where they signed a petition to bring Massoud and Maryam Rajavi to justice in a fair international court for their crimes against humanity including themselves and other members of the Cult of Rajavi.

They asked the authorities of the HCR and the Albanian government to facilitate the visit of the cult members and their families and to help them choose for their life in a free world.

Regarding the relocation of the group members in Albania, the defectors warned about the more oppressing atmosphere that rules the group’s base in Tirana compared with Camp Liberty, Iraq.

Ebrahim Khodabandeh the general director of Nejat Society, Abbas Mohammad pour, Zahra Mirbagheri, Abolfazl Yahyaiee and Gholamreza Maasoum Abadi, all recounted  various cases of human rights violation they had witnessed in the MKO.

The following is their final appeal:

Dear Sirs,

As former members of the Cult of Rajavi, we lost the best years of life in the cult under the absolute power of Rajavi. We witnessed the pains and mental pressure of the cult authorities over the members.

Despite their pro-democracy and human rights slogans, Massoud Rajavi and his wife ruined our life. We were deprived of the most basic rights of human beings in the MKO.  Those who were married were forced to divorce, they have not been allowed to see their loved ones for years.

Dissident members of the group were threatened, imprisoned and eventually tortured. In some cases they were killed in a secret way.

We did not have any access to mass media. We were not permitted to contact our family although we were willing to. Certain members were allowed to contact their families for the group’s favor including raising contributions or to recruit them — these cases were not known to ordinary members.

This organization with its terrorist background and the crimes it commits against human beings is hated by public opinion. It was also designated as a terrorist group by the US government and the EU. The group aided Saddam Hussein in suppressing the uprising of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites in 1991. Massoud Rajavi manipulated out comrades in order to commit suicide.

Therefore, we ask the authorities of the international human rights bodies and the Albanian government to bring Massoud and Maryam Rajavi to justice.  We expect that our friends in the MKO’s bases in Tirana will be able to have their least right which is choosing their place of living, and will manage to contact their families without the intervention of the cult authorities. They should be given the chance to enjoy a free life the same as we do.

Ebrahim Khodabandeh

Zahra Mirbagheri

Abbas Mohammadpour

Abolfazl Yahyaei

Gholamreza Maasoum Abadi

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Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 209

++ Last week the MEK were happily supporting Trump’s stance toward Iran and betting on war. ‘Trump will finish Iran off’ they proclaimed to their members and anyone else who would listen to them. This week, however, they suffered a setback. Farsi commentators have pointed out that not only has Trump not abandoned the agreement, the State Department now signalled that they want to support the democratic forces inside Iran. This means abandoning pursuit of violent regime change which in turn means no support for the MEK. Iran Didban website wrote that with this the MEK suddenly jumped twenty years backward and are now completely deflated. Their former backers can’t even use them as a bargaining chip. That no longer works for them.

++ Several people remind us it is the anniversary of Maryam Rajavi’s ‘election’ as President-elect. At that time Massoud Rajavi tried to copy the power structure in Iran. He attached the label ‘President’ to her so that he would be the equivalent of Iran’s Supreme Leader. Commentators say ‘now this reason does not exist anymore, this tactic is old is getting boring, she should introduce something new.’ Some directly address the remaining members of the NCRI, asking ‘don’t you think your Council should have a change of face?’

++ The news that Somayeh Mohammadi had left the MEK and gone to the Hotel came out because several formers had seen her there. The MEK issued a long document in her name swearing at everyone and claiming that ‘no, I have not come out’. Contrary to previous items in her name – pictures, video and voice – this is only in writing. However, this handwriting does not match what they previously put out in her name. Formers in Tirana say it is obvious she is not with them, but with the pressure that the MEK, backed by the CIA, puts on ex-members in Tirana, no wonder she is afraid and denies it. We know there is a very real threat of destitution and even death, they say.

In English:

++ The Tehran Times notes in its English language paper that “only Israel and Saudi Arabia, which have both been accused of committing war crimes, have welcomed Donald Trump’s decertification of the nuclear deal and his insulting language against Iran.” The article criticises these two countries before concluding: “However like himself, Trump’s inner circle are extremely biased and stupid. For example, the State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauret wrote a tweet on Oct. 15 surprisingly saying support by Israel and Saudi Arabia showed that ‘we are doing something right’.”

++ Nejat Society reported that former MEK member Mr Javad Firouzmand attended an EU Council Anti-Terrorism meeting.

++ An article in Iran Wire (translated by Nejat Society) titled ‘What three favors Rajavi asked Saddam to do for him’, is based on the admissions of Ghorbanali Hosseinnejad, former translator of Massoud Rajavi – leader of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization – who left the group five years ago. As Rajavi’s Arabic language translator, Hosseinnejad was privy to the MEK’s relations with Saddam Hussein and his inner circle. He reveals that in 2000, Rajavi asked Saddam for three favors: an increase in the oil share to fund the MEK, support from the Iraqi army for another military attack against Iran and an increase in the number of tanks Saddam supplied. “Saddam promised to undertake the third request in case of a military operation and in exchange, he asked the group to stop advertising in favor of Israel. However, the MKO authorities who were working to get the support of Israel and the US, didn’t bear out Saddam’s demand.”

++ Gareth Porter in The American Conservative, writes a revealing article ‘Trump Trashes Iran Deal to Satisfy Netanyahu’. Porter describes how Trump is formulating his policy toward Iran based on Likud Party demands. He names Netanyahu, Jared Kushner, Sheldon Adelson and John Bolton as the key influences on Trump in this respect. He says “it was Bolton who worked with Israeli officials to plan a campaign to convince the world that Iran was secretly working on nuclear weapons. His goal was to sell key European nations on a UN Security Council resolution accusing Iran of developing a nuclear program.” The plan which involved manufacturing damning documents, was abetted by the MEK. “In the summer of 2004, a large collection of documents allegedly from a covert Iranian nuclear weapons research program was suddenly obtained by Germany’s foreign intelligence agency. Those documents became the sole alleged evidence that such a program existed. But this writer found more than one telltale sign of fraud in the papers, and a former senior German foreign office official told me on the record in March 2013 that the source who passed on the documents was a member of the Mujihadeen e-Khalq (MEK), the armed Iranian opposition group. The MEK has allegedly worked with Israel’s Mossad for some time.”

October 27, 2017

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Trump and Netanyahu
Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Trump Trashes Iran Deal to Satisfy Netanyahu

U.S-Iran policy is closer to Israel than it has been in years.

President Donald Trump’s new Iran policy clearly represents a dangerous rejection of diplomacy in favor of confrontation. But it’s more than that: It’s a major shift toward a much closer alignment of U.S. policy with that of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Whether explicitly or not, Trump’s vow to work with Congress to renegotiate the Iran nuclear agreement, and his explicit threat to withdraw from the deal if no renegotiation takes place, appear to be satisfying the hardline demands Netanyahu has made of Washington’s policy toward Tehran.

Specifically, Netanyahu has continued to demand that Trump either withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or make far-reaching changes that he knows are impossible to achieve. In his September 17 speech to the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu declared, “Israel’s policy toward the nuclear deal with Iran is very simple: Change it or cancel it.” And he made no secret of what that meant: If Trump doesn’t “cancel” the deal, he must get rid of its “sunset clause” and demand that Iran end its advanced centrifuges and long-range missile program, among other fundamentally unattainable objectives.

Trump’s statement last Friday managed to include both of the either/or choices that Netanyahu had given him. He warned that, if Congress and America’s European allies do not agree on a plan to revise the deal, “then the agreement will be terminated.” He added that the agreement “is under continuous review,” and our participation “can be canceled by me, as president at any time.”

One provision the administration wants Congress to put into amended legislation would allow sanctions to be imposed if Iran crosses certain “trigger points,” which would include not only nuclear issues but the Israeli demand that Iran stop its long-range missile program. Ballistic missiles were never included in the JCPOA negotiations for an obvious reason: Iran has the same right to develop ballistic missiles as any other independent state, and it firmly rejected pro forma demands by the Barack Obama administration to include the issue in negotiations.

Trump went a long way towards Netanyahu’s “cancel” option by refusing last week to certify that Iran was keeping up its end of the JPCOA. That move signaled his intention to scrap the central compromise on which the entire agreement rests.

Although the Middle East is very different today than during the George W. Bush administration, some parallels can be found in comparing Trump’s policy toward the JCPOA and Bush’s policy toward Iran during the early phase of its uranium enrichment program.

The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump’s and Bush’s Iran policies held views close to those of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, primary foreign policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner’s parents are also long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank.

Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not appointed Trump’s secretary of state, as he’d hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran.

Bolton spoke with Trump by phone on Thursday about the paragraph in the deal that vowed it would be “terminated” if there was any renegotiation, according toPolitico. He was calling Trump from Las Vegas, where he’d been meeting with casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the third major figure behind Trump’s shift towards Israeli issues. Adelson is a Likud supporter who has long been a close friend of Netanyahu’s and has used his Israeli tabloid newspaper Israel Hayomto support Netanyahu’s campaigns. He was Trump’s main campaign contributor in 2016, donating $100 million. Adelson’s real interest has been in supporting Israel’s interests in Washington—especially with regard to Iran.

In a public appearance in Israel in 2013, when Adelson was asked about his view on negotiating with Tehran, he suggested dropping a nuclear weapon on a desert in Iran and then saying to the Iranians, “See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development….”

The Likud Party policy preferences on Iran dominated the Bush administration in large part because of the influence of David Wurmser, a Likudist who was a Middle East advisor first to Bolton and later to Vice President Dick Cheney. Wurmser was a co-author, with Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, of A Clean Break, the 1996 paper that advised Netanyahu to carry out military strikes against Syria and Iran and to remove the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. Wurmser convinced Cheney that the administration should seek a pretext for attacking Iran.

But it was Bolton who worked with Israeli officials to plan a campaign to convince the world that Iran was secretly working on nuclear weapons. His goal was to sell key European nations on a UN Security Council resolution accusing Iran of developing a nuclear program. Bolton explains in his memoirs that the assumption of his strategy was that either the Security Council would strip Iran of its right to have a nuclear program or the United States would take unilateral military action.

In the summer of 2004, a large collection of documents allegedly from a covert Iranian nuclear weapons research program was suddenly obtained by Germany’s foreign intelligence agency. Those documents became the sole alleged evidence that such a program existed. But this writer found more than one telltale sign of fraud in the papers, and a former senior German foreign office official told me on the record in March 2013 that the source who passed on the documents was a member of the Mujihadeen e-Khalq (MEK), the armed Iranian opposition group. The MEK has allegedly worked with Israel’s Mossad for some time.

Neither the Bush administration nor the Trump administration viewed the alleged danger of nuclear proliferation by Iran as the priority problem per se; it was rather an issue to be exploited to weaken the Islamic regime and ultimately achieve regime change. Hilary Mann Leverett, the NSC coordinator in the Persian Gulf from 2001-03, told this writer in a 2013 interview that Wurmser and other Cheney advisors were convinced that the student protests of 1999 indicated that Iranians were ready to overthrow the Islamic Republic. In his statement last week, Trump blamed Obama for having lifted nuclear sanctions on Iran “just before what would have been the total collapse of the Iranian regime.”

After Netanyahu became Israeli prime minister in early 2009, his administration worked assiduously for four years to maneuver the Obama administration into giving Iran an ultimatum over its enrichment program. Obama rejected such a proposal, but Bolton has repeated his call for the United States to bomb Iran year after year.

Now the Trump administration is playing out a new chapter in the drama of the Likudists and their patrons in Washington. Their objective is nothing less than using U.S. power to weaken Iran through military means if possible and economic sanctions if necessary. The remarkable thing is that Trump is cooperating even more eagerly than did Bush.

Gareth Porter is an independent journalist and winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. He is the author of numerous books, including Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.

By GARETH PORTER

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Rajavi and Saddam
The MEK; Baath Party Accomplice

What three favors Rajavi asked Saddam to do for him?

Ghorbanali Hosseinnejad, former translator of Massoud Rajavi – leader of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization – left the group five years ago.

He got familiar with the MKO when he was a student of Tehran University in 1972. Together with his comrades, he used to write the statements and the announcements of the group’s radio and they would distribute the papers in the campus of Tehran University.

He was arrested by the Shah’s Intelligence Agency (SAVAK) in a raid to the campus. He was imprisoned in Evin prison where he got to see the premier heads of the group who had been previously arrested.

After the revolution in 1979, he was employed as a teacher, he was also the interpreter of the Iranian former Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar – who was then killed by the MKO in 1980. Hosseinnejad became the governor of his hometown Mianeh in the North West of Iran where he became the candidate of the MKO in the first elections for the Iranian parliament.

Following the start of the MKO’s armed struggle against the Islamic Republic, Hosseinnejad left Iran. After years of living in Turkey, Greece and Europe, he was finally transferred to Camp Ashraf. He defected the MKO in 2012 by the aid of the United Nation’s Mission in Iraq.

During the entire years of his membership in the MKO, Hosseinnejad was the translator of Arabic letters and papers for Massoud Rajavi. He also used to attend the meetings between the group leader and Iraqi authorities so he was aware of the amount of the group’s investments in contracts with Iraqi government and other countries.

Although Hosseinnejad was not a military force of the group, he was made participate the MKO’s cross border military attack to Iran—called Forough Javidan. He took arm but he didn’t fire any bullets. He lost his wife in the operation.

His daughter Zeinab was taken as hostage in the group for years. [She could manage to leave the cult recently, his other daughter Mona had been left behind in Iran]

Hosseinnejad used to work in the MKO’s foreign relation’s section since 1992 until his release from the group. Based on his testimony, Rajavi used to write a letter to Saddam Hussein to offer congratulations every year, on the anniversary of the Baath Party. By fabricating some analysis about the alleged near overthrow of the Islamic Republic, he would ask the Iraqi dictator for more share of the oil outcome.

According to Hosseinenjad, the MKO demanded to receive 70 thousand barrels of oil every day up to 2000.  “In 2000, Massoud visited Saddam Hussein for the last time. In the meeting, Rajavi asked the then Iraqi president for three favors. First the increase of the oil share to 100 thousand barrels a day, second the support by the side of Saddam Hussein for another military attack against Iran and the third one was the increase of the number of the tanks. Saddam promised to undertake the third request in case of a military operation and in exchange, he asked the group to stop advertising in favor of Israel. However, the MKO authorities who were working to get the support of Israel and the US, didn’t bear out Saddam’s demand.

After the visit, the MKO’s share of oil mounted to 100 thousand barrels. Hosseinnejad translated all the checks and receipts of these deals. Hosseinnejad asserts that after the Iraqi invasion to Kuwait and eventually the imposition of sanctions against Iraq, the UN had proved 3 million barrels of oil products in exchange for food and medicine.  “Any amount of oil that was produced more than such amount was allocated to the MKO. This was agreed in a meeting with Izat Ibrahim, Tariq Aziz, Taha Yasin Ramadan and the senior members of the Iraqi Revolution Council and the official of Iraqi Intelligence who was in charge of Rajavi.”

In October 2002, Hosseinnejad had to translate a letter to Iraqi Oil minister. It was said in the letter that analysts believe that the US would invade Iraq soon. Therefore, the MKO had asked the Iraqi government to give their share of oil for the next autumn and winter together because it would not be able to sell the oil in case that the war broke. “They insisted on this demand for months until they could ultimately receive the oil share and change it to money” Hosseinnejad reveals. “A part of this sum was brought to Iraq and the other part was invested in deals. Karim Falahat was one of the officials for such investments who was arrested and then killed by Americans in Jordan. Ibrahim Khodabandeh and Jamil Bassam were also arrested in Syria. “

Hosseinnejad says that a part of this money was spent in the MKO’s bases in Iraq and other countries but a large part was invested which has been the source of the group funds until now.” The organization had offices in Iraq, UAE and Jordan but a small part of the outcome spent in bases. The large part was invested in businesses like companies, firms, hotels, airlines etc.

“Some Iranian businessmen who were sympathizers of the group aided it with the investments. Although the group enjoys the financial support of certain countries like Saudi Arabia, it still enjoys the outcome of money that was invested with the oil revenue donated by Saddam. They even invested in Africa, these investment can bear fruit forever,” Hosseinnejad asserts.

About the financial support by Saudi Arabia, he recounts, “In 1987, when I was faxing Massoud Rajavi’s letters (in Arabic) to leaders of Arabic countries, I saw a letter of gratitude to Malik Abdullah for his aids. Of-course, it was not written what kind of aids but Saudi Arabia has been always aiding the MKO financially. Massoud Rajavi had written another letter of gratitude in 1989 when he had gone to pilgrimage in Mecca.”

The MKO’s propaganda has always claimed that its sympathizers contribute to it – they have always had fundraising events in which they demonstrate some fabrications on the alleged violations of human rights in Iran in order to take people’s sympathy and so their money. However, Husseinnejad believes that such funds are never enough for the huge expenses of the MKO; their foreign investments guarantee their survival. 

Iran Wire – translated by Nejat Society

 

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Javad Firouzmand at EUP
Former members of the MEK

MKO former member participates the EU Council anti-Terrorism meeting

The EU Commission emergency service representatives joined together in Brussels to remember all of those killed and injured during the recent terrorist attacks.

The European anti-terrorism commission

Javan Firouzmand participated the EU anti-terrorism commission

The Commission also presented a new package of measures aimed at boosting protection, in the wake of the deadly attacks which have rocked the bloc.

The measures to be rolled out over the next 16 months will help Member States address vulnerabilities exposed by recent terrorist attacks and will make a real difference in enhancing security.

The EU proposals include stopping would-be attackers getting their hands on bomb-making ingredients, doing more to counter radicalization and boosting protection around public spaces.

Javad Firouzmand; MKO former member

Representatives of different European States participated the meetings. Mr. Javad Firouzmand; former member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Terrorist Cult also participated the meetings, as an anti-terror activist. 

Based on the Aria Iran Website report.

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