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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Delisting MEK would be a disaster

Washington, DC – The Mujahadeen-e Khalq (MEK), a cult-like Iranian terrorist organization with a history of violence and no support among the Iranian people, has been paying U.S. politicians to help them get off the State Department’s terrorist list. They are rallying in front of the State Department today to take the group of the terror list. Today, NIAC President Trita Parsi released the following statement in regards to the MEK campaign:

“If the MEK campaign is successful, it means that America’s national security is officially on sale to the highest bidder, and terror groups are free to set U.S. policies if the price is right.

Delisting the MEK has little to do with humanitarian concern or support for a democratic Iran, and everything to do with putting the military option at the center of our Iran policy. The group’s biggest supporters in Washington have suggested using the MEK in a ‘tit for tat’ campaign of attacks against Iran that could quickly escalate into war.

Despite the MEK’s claims, delisting the group would be disastrous for Iran’s nonviolent democratic opposition [..]

The MEK operates as a cult that abuses its own members, and delisting it would only worsen humanitarian concerns in Camp Ashraf by empowering the group’s leadership. MEK leaders have exploited the suffering of the people in Ashraf and obstructed serious humanitarian proposals in order to advance their agenda of gaining U.S. support.

If the MEK leadership truly cares about the people in Camp Ashraf, they would not threaten to order them to commit mass-suicide to U.S. diplomats if the MEK isn’t delisted.

This group’s history of fraudulent claims casts serious doubt that we can simply take them at their word that they are no longer engaged in terrorism. They claim to have changed their ways, but the MEK refuses to acknowledge that their attacks that killed Iranian and American civilians are terrorism. This begs the question: how does the MEK expect us to believe it has changed its ways if the organization doesn’t even acknowledge it was a terrorist group in the first place?”

August 27, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Why Are Prominent Americans Lobbying for MKO Terrorists ?

It is not hard to imagine how Americans would react if they learned that Al Qaeda had hired top lobbyists to help promote its agenda in Congress. Or if they heard that influential active and retired government officials were being paid to attest to Hezbollah’s good character. They would be appalled.

But, amazingly, a group similar to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah is doing just that. It is the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian exile group that is on the Department of State’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations alongside other more prominent groups such Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Shabaab.

The MEK wants to be removed from the terrorist list because, by law, its presence there prevents it from directly promoting its agenda in Washington, and most importantly, from fundraising. So it has recruited some of officialdom’s biggest names to convince Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to "delist" MEK and free it from the current limitations on its activities. News reports predict that Clinton is seriously considering the move and will make a decision by month’s end.

According to the New York Times, among the "luminaries" promoting "delisting" are former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani; former Vermont governor Howard Dean; former NATO commander Wesley K. Clark, President Obama’s former national security adviser Gen. James Jones; former F.B.I. director, Louis Freeh; former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson; former attorney general Michael B. Mukasey; and Lee H. Hamilton, the former congressman who was co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission. The Times report notes that the MEK endorsers are paid handsome sums (up to $100,000) for speaking out in its behalf.

The MEK’s hired guns say that it does not belong on the list because it long ago abandoned its violent ways. But its record is so long and so bloody that only the very credulous can believe that it turned a new leaf. And there is doubt whether the MEK is even a peaceful movement today. An FBI report from 2004 noted that the agency had reason to believe that the group was still "planning and executing acts of terrorism."

It is hard to keep up with the MEK, which changes its positions and alliances as often as a teenager changes baseball caps. That is, in part, because it is more like a cult than a political organization. (Even its supporters agree with that.) Its members are required to lay aside all personal desires and devote themselves completely to the MEK leader in a manner eerily similar to the Jim Jones Jonestown cult.

The Mujahedin-e Khalq started out supporting the Iranian revolution that drove out the Shah and replaced him with the Islamic Republic of Ayatollah Khomeini. That was in the 1970’s, a decade during which the MEK assassinated six U.S. military advisers and civilians in Iran and then participated in the seizure and hostage taking at the American embassy in 1979. It was among Ayatollah Khomeini’s most militant supporters and opposed any compromises with the United States which it called "the satanic force threatening the world…."

But it soon broke violently with the Ayatollah Khomeini regime and dedicated itself to overthrowing it. It relocated to, of all places, Iraq and allied itself with Iran’s then arch enemy, Saddam Hussein. Saddam gave the MEK a military base inside the country, from which to conduct its war against Iran and Saddam’s other enemies.
During the Iran-Iraq war, the Times notes, MEK "served as Mr. Hussein’s own private militia….For two decades he gave the group money, weapons, jeeps and military bases along the border with Iran." In 1991, the MEK helped Saddam crush the Shiite uprising in the south and eradicate the Kurds in the north. Reports of Iranian dead at the hands of the MEK range from several hundred to thousands.

Following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, American forces disarmed the MEK camp, although some 3,400 MEK members remain there today despite the natural determination of the current government to get a pro-Saddam encampment out of the country. (Most observers believe that a large percentage of the people at the camp are being held against their will, with no means to escape or place to escape to.)

And that brings us back to the current effort to "delist" the MEK. One of the ostensible reasons MEK’s advocates use is that "delisting" would allow innocent people in the camp to get out and seek refuge in other countries. But freeing the captives can be accomplished through the combined efforts of the U.S. military, the International Red Cross and the United Nations who can go in and separate out the hostages from the terrorists, who should be prosecuted. Delisting is irrelevant in that context.

So why the effort to delist? The MEK wants to be free to ensconce itself in Washington and other world capitals and play the role of a legitimate Iranian opposition, similar to what Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress did prior to the Iraq war. Also like the Chalabi group, the MEK seeks to align itself with American neoconservatives (many of whom already support it) and agitate for a U.S. invasion of their home country.

That analogy is an especially telling one because the MEK is despised in the nation it would like to "liberate." According to Ray Tayekh, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, the MEK has absolutely no standing whatsoever to play a role in Iran, and not just because Iranians hate the organization for having joined Saddam’s war against the country.

At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last month, he testified that the group’s "alliance with Saddam and its cult-like dispositions have alienated even the radical segments of intelligentsia that once found its ideological template attractive. … The Iranian populace is seeking ways of liberalizing its society and not embracing yet another ideological movement with totalitarian tendencies."

Given all this, it is amazing that any American would ally himself with the MEK. After all, what end does delisting serve other than to liberate a former terrorist group so that it might more effectively promote U.S. involvement in another Middle East war. That is, in fact, precisely why prominent neocons support delisting, just as they supported Chalabi.

"If the group is taken off the list, not as a result of an objective review, but by virtue of their lobbying prowess, several repercussions can be envisioned," Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, a pro-democracy group, wrote earlier this year.

Some of these serious repercussions would be felt by the Iranian people. Because the group is despised by Iranians across the ideological, political and social spectrum, legitimizing it here might delegitimize the democracy movement there. [..]

It is likely that most of the people who lend their names to the MEK’s campaign have no idea what the group is and simply accepts money from it as an honorarium for making a speech, as if the MEK was like any other group that opposes the Iranian regime and supports U.S. policy goals. It isn’t. The MEK is indeed an enemy of the Iranian regime. But it is also our enemy. In other words, sometimes the enemy of our enemy is not our friend.

By MJ Rosenberg

August 25, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

The two-sided demonstration of MKO terrorists

The yellow flags of well-funded Mujahedin Khalq’s supporters will be fluttered in front of the State Department on Friday August 26th following the calls the group has made for several weeks and the dollars it has spent for its usually artificially magnified demonstrations. The agenda is to call the DOS to delist MKO which has been on the list since its creation in 1997. The gathering will be surely accompanied by speakers whose pockets are filled with the MKO dollars. The coincidence is that it is the International Quds Day ; an annual event on the last Friday of Ramadan in which people rally to express solidarity with the Palestinian people and opposing Zionism .

If these efforts made by the MKO and propaganda campaign and its lobby in the US administration end with its being delisted, it will be a remarkable transformation; MKO was a terrorist Marxist cult with the blood of Americans on its hands, it turns into a friend, an ally for the US in its animosities against Iranian government, big change.

Elizabeth Rubin, a contributor to the New York Times Magazine who visited the MKO’s Camp Ashraf in 2003, believes that American supporters of the group are two groups.” in fact, an unlikely chorus of the group’s backers – some of whom have received speaking fees, others of whom are inspired by their conviction that the Iranian government must fall at any cost,” she writes in her new article.[1] as a person who has been eye witness of what is really going inside the MKO, Rubin describes her experiences of visiting an authoritarian cult closely, warning the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.”Mrs. Clinton should ignore their P.R. campaign,”she states.[2]

Removing the MKO from the list will not make it a good, reliable friend. Reza Nasri of Iranian.com asserts that as a “radical” group, MKO’s “fanatical ideology, pugnacious discourse, undemocratic structure, leadership mission and agenda”, signify it as a terrorist designated organization. Nasri uses a very dramatic simily to explain the unchangeable nature of Mujahedin. He writes, “a mere change of designation is as absurd as removing a snake from the list of reptiles and expecting it to act as peaceful dove.”[3]

The message that delisting the MKO will send to the public is on the one hand, the fact that you can buy everything in the US. You are able to consider a group a friend or a freedom fighter or a pro-democratic movement rather a terrorist communist cult, just if you are well paid by the group. On the other hand, removing the MKO from the list opens the door for other terrorist group’s lobbying efforts in the US government. ”just imagine what sort of message such laxity could send to both the defenders and violators of international criminal law,” Reza Nasri concludes.

Another side of MKO demonstration
As I mentioned Friday is also the day of Quds annual rally – a day of protest against illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the city of Quds (Jerusalem) by Israel. As the new patron of Mujahedin Khalq the Israel lobby has employed the MKO agents to bring over 5000 people to a counter rally against the Quds rally, according to Iran-Interlink.

An insider of the National Council of Resistance has told Iran-Interlink that some operatives of the group have already arrived in Washington to prepare the ground for the arrival of the other thousands.[4] the MKO’s gathering on Friday will serve the needs of their new Zionist friends besides what it will bring to their own agenda.

The history never forgets that the Mujahedin Khalq Organization started its struggle as an anti-Zionist, anti-Imperialist movement. Its operatives received military training in PLO camps and Israelis interests, were among their first targets of assassination and bombing during the 1970’s.

You may feel dizzy. No surprise. The history of the MKO is overflowed with controversies.

By Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] Rubin, Elizabeth, nytimes , An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends, August 14, 2011
[2] ibid
[3] Nasri, Reza, iranian.com, Radical by Nature – The MEK will never become a moderate political force, August 20,2011
[4] Iran-Interlink, Growing International support for Palestinians prompts desperate measures from Israeli lobby – Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) mercenaries used to counter pro-Palestinian rally in America, August 18,2011

August 25, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

The MEK will never become a moderate political force

Radical by Nature
The MEK will never become a moderate political force
The presumption that the MEK would transform itself into a “moderate” political group if delisted is flawed. The MEK did not become “radical” as a result of being “listed” as a terrorist organization in 1997. It was an extremist group way before that date. What fuels its radicalism and taste for terrorism is not how it is termed by the State Department or the nature of its relationship with the U.S, but its fanatical ideology, pugnacious discourse, undemocratic structure, leadership, mission and agenda. So unless the act of delisting provokes by itself a miraculous mutation in the group’s genetic fabric (something that proponents of delisting have to prove), there is absolutely no reason to believe that the MEK would or even could go against its own nature and fundamentally change its behavior solely because of a new legal status. Expecting an inherently violent and erratic organization to relinquish its raison d’être and become pragmatic because of a mere change of designation is as absurd as removing a snake from the list of “reptiles” and expecting it to act as peaceful dove.

Delisting the MEK would more likely allow it to advance its agenda with more freedom and with much more funding and act out its twisted vision with a credibility bestowed upon it by a U.S stamp of approval.

Of course, no one denies that an unconventional political group, a paramilitary or any other non-state actor could potentially moderate itself if it is engaged in a conventional political process. But the conversion from an eccentric actor to a rational one is not automatic. And not every group is capable of it. It requires a minimum of rationality and reasonableness amongst the group’s leadership. It takes some element of moderation – eventually represented by a faction within the group – that can be enhanced and boosted through engagement and recognition. But with the MEK, we’re talking about a senseless monolithic cult – with absolutely no voice or seeds of moderation inside – with a violent mentality and language that has not evolved one bit since 1980 (they still shout “death to Khomeini” in their rallies 22 years after the former leader’s demise). We’re talking about a cult that did not hesitate to go as far as instructing its own members to set themselves ablaze for the sheer purpose of attracting media attention when it wanted to coerce France to release Maryam Rajavi after she was detained by a French judge for a few days in Paris in 2003.

So, the subject of debate is not a normal political group that has at one point made few bad choices, then reformed and now deserves a second chance to integrate. But an inherently spiteful and unbridled cult in which members are still expected to show an excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to their immovable leaders, where mind-altering practices (such as group chanting, collective rituals, denunciation sessions) are daily routine and where violence and coercion have been deeply engrained as very legitimate tools of achieving the end. Therefore, it is very unlikely that removing the MEK from the FTOs list would suddenly make its guru-style leaders change their ways (the only ways they know) or awaken the dormant forces of compromise and rationality within it so that it can act as a rational political actor.

Moreover, even if we accept the improbable assertion that delisting the MEK may somehow moderate its future behavior, it is still not a solid reason to do so. The State Department’s mission is not to close its eyes on the realities, history and current nature of an organization under review and to forgo all statutory criteria for designation in hope of taming or pacifying it. Its mission is to assess the current state of the organization and make a decision based on what it sees. A mere hypothetical prospect – or hope – of “moderating” the group in the future should not counterbalance all the actual and real facts supporting its designation as a FTO. If a group qualifies as a “terrorist organization” under U.S law based on its past actions, nature, ideology and material capacity to act violently then it should simply be called a “terrorist organization”. In other words, the process of designation is not about how we hope a particular group would act if delisted; but about what the group is or isn’t in its current form. Not calling a demonstrably dangerous organization what it so to induce it to change is not exactly a prudent or wise policy. Besides, it would send a terrible message to all other terrorist organizations about the United States’ resolve to fight terrorism.

Finally, among the State Department’s list of FTOs, the MEK is in one grim sense one of the few exceptions: The current leaders of the MEK, unlike the leaders of many other listed FTOs, are suspected with very probable cause of the highest and most serious crimes under international law – especially of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Whilst the members and/or leaders of many other FTOs – vicious and violent as they may be – are considered common criminals, outlawed rebels or simply “terrorists” liable for criminal prosecution under their respective domestic jurisdictions, the seriousness, nature and gravity of the crimes imputable to the MEK leadership is such that it makes them prone to prosecution in just any territory that they could be found. In other words, we’re not just talking about “terrorists” or “corrigible terrorists” that some proponents may, by a stretch of logic, even call “freedom fighters” but about alleged perpetrators of the most heinous and wanton crimes known to mankind. For this reason, it would be both irresponsible as a political act and disastrous as a legal precedent for U.S officials to take the risk of legalizing and legitimizing a group accused of the highest crimes, simply in hope of “moderating” its future behavior. Just imagine what sort of message such laxity could send to both the defenders and violators of international criminal law.

by Reza Nasri

August 24, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

U.S. FTO List published August 2011 includes MKO

Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
U.S. State Department report on terrorism published August 2011 includes MKO
Country Reports on Terrorism 2010

August 18, 2011

Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) are designated by the Secretary of State in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). FTO designations play a critical role in the fight against terrorism and are an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities.

Legal Criteria for Designation under Section 219 of the INA as amended:

1. It must be a foreign organization.
2. The organization must engage in terrorist activity, as defined in section 212 (a)(3)(B) of the INA (8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(3)(B)), or terrorism, as defined in section 140(d)(2) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989 (22 U.S.C. § 2656f(d)(2)), or retain the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism.
3. The organization’s terrorist activity or terrorism must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense, foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States.

U.S. Government Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations

Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)
Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AAMB)
Al-Qa’ida (AQ)
Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI)
Al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)
Al-Shabaab (AS)
Ansar al-Islam
Asbat al-Ansar
Aum Shinrikyo (AUM)
Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA)
Communist Party of Philippines/New People’s Army (CPP/NPA)
Continuity Irish Republican Army (CIRA)
Gama’a al-Islamiyya (IG)
Hamas
Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami (HUJI)
Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami/Bangladesh (HUJI-B)
Harakat ul-Mujahideen (HUM)
Hizballah
Islamic Jihad Union (IJU)
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)
Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM)
Jemaah Islamiya (JI)
Jundallah
Kahane Chai
Kata’ib Hizballah (KH)
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LT)
Lashkar i Jhangvi (LJ)
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)
Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM)
Mujahadin-e Khalq Organization (MEK)
National Liberation Army (ELN)
Palestine Liberation Front – Abu Abbas Faction (PLF)
Palestine Islamic Jihad – Shaqaqi Faction (PIJ)
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC)
Real IRA (RIRA)
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N)
Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C)
Revolutionary Struggle (RS)
Shining Path (SL)
Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP)
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)

ABU NIDAL ORGANIZATION

aka ANO; Arab Revolutionary Brigades; Arab Revolutionary Council; Black September; Fatah Revolutionary Council; Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims

Description: …

(…)

MUJAHADIN-E KHALQ ORGANIZATION

aka MEK; MKO; Mujahadin-e Khalq; Muslim Iranian Students’ Society; National Council of Resistance; NCR; Organization of the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran; the National Liberation Army of Iran; NLA; People’s Mujahadin Organization of Iran; PMOI; National Council of Resistance of Iran; NCRI; Sazeman-e Mujahadin-e Khalq-e Iran

Description: The Mujahadin-E Khalq Organization (MEK) was originally designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on October 8, 1997. The MEK is a Marxist-Islamic Organization that seeks the overthrow of the Iranian regime through its military wing, the National Liberation Army (NLA), and its political front, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

The MEK was founded in 1963 by a group of college-educated Iranian Marxists who opposed the country’s pro-western ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The group participated in the 1979 Islamic Revolution that replaced the Shah with a Shiite Islamist regime led by Ayatollah Khomeini. However, the MEK’s ideology – a blend of Marxism, feminism, and Islamism – was at odds with the post-revolutionary government, and its original leadership was soon executed by the Khomeini regime. In 1981, the group was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Iraq in its eight-year war against Khomeini’s Iran. In 1986, after France recognized the Iranian regime, the MEK moved its headquarters to Iraq, which facilitated its terrorist activities in Iran. Since 2003, roughly 3,400 MEK members have been encamped at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

Activities: The group’s worldwide campaign against the Iranian government uses propaganda and terrorism to achieve its objectives. During the 1970s, the MEK staged terrorist attacks inside Iran and killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran. In 1972, the MEK set off bombs in Tehran at the U.S. Information Service office (part of the U.S. Embassy), the Iran-American Society, and the offices of several U.S. companies to protest the visit of President Nixon to Iran. In 1973, the MEK assassinated the deputy chief of the U.S. Military Mission in Tehran and bombed several businesses, including Shell Oil. In 1974, the MEK set off bombs in Tehran at the offices of U.S. companies to protest the visit of then U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger. In 1975, the MEK assassinated two U.S. military officers who were members of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group in Tehran. In 1976, the MEK assassinated two U.S. citizens who were employees of Rockwell International in Tehran. In 1979, the group claimed responsibility for the murder of an American Texaco executive. Though denied by the MEK, analysis based on eyewitness accounts and MEK documents demonstrates that MEK members participated in and supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and that the MEK later argued against the early release the American hostages. The MEK also provided personnel to guard and defend the site of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, following the takeover of the Embassy.

In 1981, MEK leadership attempted to overthrow the newly installed Islamic regime; Iranian security forces subsequently initiated a crackdown on the group. The MEK instigated a bombing campaign, including an attack against the head office of the Islamic Republic Party and the Prime Minister’s office, which killed some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including Chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. These attacks resulted in an expanded Iranian government crackdown that forced MEK leaders to flee to France. For five years, the MEK continued to wage its terrorist campaign from its Paris headquarters. Expelled by France in 1986, MEK leaders turned to Saddam Hussein’s regime for basing, financial support, and training. Near the end of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, Baghdad armed the MEK with heavy military equipment and deployed thousands of MEK fighters in suicidal, mass wave attacks against Iranian forces.

The MEK’s relationship with the former Iraqi regime continued through the 1990s. In 1991, the group reportedly assisted the Iraqi Republican Guard’s bloody crackdown on Iraqi Shia and Kurds who rose up against Saddam Hussein’s regime. In April 1992, the MEK conducted near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and consular missions in 13 countries, including against the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York, demonstrating the group’s ability to mount large-scale operations overseas. In June 1998, the MEK was implicated in a series of bombing and mortar attacks in Iran that killed at least 15 and injured several others. The MEK also assassinated the former Iranian Minister of Prisons in 1998. In April 1999, the MEK targeted key Iranian military officers and assassinated the deputy chief of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff, Brigadier General Ali Sayyaad Shirazi.

In April 2000, the MEK attempted to assassinate the commander of the Nasr Headquarters, Tehran’s interagency board responsible for coordinating policies on Iraq. The pace of anti-Iranian operations increased during “Operation Great Bahman” in February 2000, when the group launched a dozen attacks against Iran. One attack included a mortar attack against a major Iranian leadership complex in Tehran that housed the offices of the Supreme Leader and the President. The attack killed one person and injured six other individuals. In March 2000, the MEK launched mortars into a residential district in Tehran, injuring four people and damaging property. In 2000 and 2001, the MEK was involved in regular mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids against Iranian military and law enforcement personnel, as well as government buildings near the Iran-Iraq border. Following an initial Coalition bombardment of the MEK’s facilities in Iraq at the outset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, MEK leadership negotiated a cease-fire with Coalition Forces and surrendered their heavy-arms to Coalition control. Since 2003, roughly 3,400 MEK members have been encamped at Ashraf in Iraq.

In 2003, French authorities arrested 160 MEK members at operational bases they believed the MEK was using to coordinate financing and planning for terrorist attacks. Upon the arrest of MEK leader Maryam Rajavi, MEK members took to Paris’ streets and engaged in self-immolation. French authorities eventually released Rajavi.

Strength: Estimates place MEK’s worldwide membership at between 5,000 and 10,000 members, with large pockets in Paris and other major European capitals. In Iraq, roughly 3,400 MEK members are gathered at Camp Ashraf, the MEK’s main compound north of Baghdad. As a condition of the 2003 cease-fire agreement, the MEK relinquished more than 2,000 tanks, armored personnel carriers, and heavy artillery.

Location/Area of Operation: The MEK’s global support structure remains in place, with associates and supporters scattered throughout Europe and North America. Operations have targeted Iranian government elements across the globe, including in Europe and Iran. The MEK’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has a global support network with active lobbying and propaganda efforts in major Western capitals. NCRI also has a well-developed media communications strategy.

External Aid: Before Operation Iraqi Freedom began in 2003, the MEK received all of its military assistance and most of its financial support from Saddam Hussein. The fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime has led the MEK increasingly to rely on front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities.

(…)
U.S. State Department, August2011

August 23, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Mujahedin Supporters Envision”Tit for Tat”Campaign Against Iran

Washington, DC – The Iran Policy Committee, an organization dedicated to gaining U.S. support for the Mujahedin-e Khalq, organized an event on Thursday with former U.S. officials calling for the MEK to be removed from the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

While the panelists argued that the MEK is not a terrorist organization, they said the group’s “hands were tied” by the terrorist designation and suggested that delisting the group would enable it to commit attacks within Iran.

Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney said an MEK delisting should be part of a campaign of “proactive actions” against Tehran. The MEK, he said, is the only “credible overt political-military counterforce to the Iranian regime.”

“We need a very active tit for tat policy,” said McInerney. “So every time they kill Americans, they have an accident in Iran.”

John Sano, formerly of the Central Intelligence Agency, echoed those sentiments.

“I agree one hundred percent with what the General just said, it’s got to be tit for tat. We have known that the Iranians have been in Iraq talking to our enemies. We know that the MOIS has been in Iraq causing harm to U.S. personnel. And the only thing that can counter that is force,” Sano said. “I know that may sound too militaristic, but you have to go with what your enemy understands.”

McInerney accused former Defense Secretary Robert Gates of direct complicity in deaths that occurred in Camp Ashraf, the MEK compound in Iraq, last April. “As far as I’m concerned, Secretary Gates personally approved Prime Minister Maliki’s direction of that attack,” McInerney said.

The panelists also repeated the refrain that the MEK is Iran’s “main opposition,” but did not acknowledge the well-documented popular antipathy among Iranians towards the group, which fought alongside Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran war. [..]

The Iran Policy Committee’s President, Ray Tanter, said his organization uses the color green for its materials because the color should not be reserved for the Green Movement and Mir Hossein Mousavi, whom Tanter said is a “sell out.”

Tanter emphasized what he said was his own extensive research regarding the MEK and Iran’s opposition, and stated that those opposing the MEK’s delisting “are running in circles” because they do not have their facts straight.

However, Tanter’s presentation included several inconsistencies. When he invoked the death of Neda Agha Soltan and pulled up a photo of the wrong person.

Tanter stated that there was no publicly available evidence that the MEK has carried out terrorist attacks since 2001, but when asked whether this was an acknowledgement that MEK had committed terror attacks before this period, he demurred.

Tanter reasoned that attacks carried out by MEK against government officials and military installations are not terrorist acts. “I do not grant that the MEK committed terrorist attacks before 2001,” he said, “I do grant that there were military activities targeting military installations.”

But when asked if his logic meant that a 2009 attack at a Fort Hood, Texas, military base that killed fifteen U.S. servicemembers was terrorism, he avoided the question.

The panel was asked if sanctions could be an effective strategy towards Iran, to which all the panelists responded no-sanctions would not work. McInerney even said that sanctions alone would make war with Iran inevitable. But moments later, Tanter recanted. Sanctions would not work, he said, but they should still be leveled against Iran’s Central Bank-a step some legal experts have called “the nuclear option” that would constitute an act of war.

By Staff, National Iranian American Council (NIAC)

August 23, 2011 0 comments

Iraq

Baghdad conference discusses legality of MKO presence

In this gathering organized by the Iraqi Justice association, many Iraqi officials, tribal leaders and ordinary people voiced their support for the MKO victims that are calling for expulsion of the organization from their country.

These people have come together to discuss about the legality of the presence of the terrorist group of Mujahedin Khalgh Organization on their soil.

During the conference the organizers and the attendees stated that they have sent a request to Iraqi government to expel the MKO saying that they launched a campaign to collect one million signatures to be attached to the request.

They also reminded the Iraqi policy makers of what they called the crimes committed by MKO against the Iraqi citizens under Saddam regime.

After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, American troops disarmed MKO members based at the training base of the terrorist group at Camp Ashraf — about 60km north of Baghdad.

There are many in Iraq saying that despite the disarment, the US and its allies delay evacuation of the camp.

They stressed that the US intentions in this regard cannot be peaceful as they have emphasized that they have plans to use Iraq as a primary base to launch attacks against the neighboring countries.

The United States, Canada, Iraq and Iran have all designated the MKO as a terrorist organization.
Iraqi security forces took control of the camp, housing 3,500 people, on July 28.

The group is especially notorious in Iran for siding with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

Wisam al-Bayati, Baghdad
Download Baghdad conference discusses legality of MKO presence

August 23, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Antiwar’s Scott Horton interviews Gareth Porter on MEK

This interview is from the KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles broadcast of August 12th.

Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses the infamous “laptop of death” documents from which the vast majority of “evidence” about Iran’s supposed clandestine nuclear weapons program comes from; the conspicuous mistakes in the documents that lead him to believe a foreign intelligence agency (probably Mossad) fabricated them; how Iran’s refusal to turn over military missile blueprints (which are none of the IAEA’s business) got them labeled “uncooperative” and sanctioned by the UN; and how the MEK launders information, passing off documents sourced from Israel as their own.
Download Antiwar’s Scott Horton interviews Gareth Porter on MEK

August 21, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

What is Iran’s MEK and why is it so popular among American leaders?

It’s been quite a year for the Mujahedeen Khalq. The organization, known by its initials MEK, seeks regime change in Iran and is on a determined big-money campaign to get off the U.S. terrorism list.

The state department review of their status is due in a matter of weeks.

Iranians protested when the EU took Mujahedeen Khalq off its terrorist list in 2008.

The organization, accused of having a cult-like culture, bought a full page ad in the Washington Post and has purchased the support of dozens of American politicians and national security experts. The Huffington Post lists 31 prominent people from both sides of the political aisle who have appeared at Mujahedeen Khalq-related events.

We get analysis from Narimon Safavi, a Worldview regular and president of the Pasfarda Arts & Culture Exchange.

Listen to the interivew

by Worldview on WBEZ.org

August 21, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

CBC radio on Mujahideen-e-Khalq

A banned Iranian Terrorist group has been mounting a persistent and expensive lobbying campaign in both Canada and the United States to have its ban lifted. The Mujahideen-e-Khalq has a violent past. Some describe the group as an authoritarian cult. But the group has supporters, including high profile current and former politicians who see MEK as a possible instrument of regime change in Iran.

Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) – Elizabeth Rubin

On April 5, 1992, a large group of Iranians attacked the Iranian embassy in Ottawa. No one was seriously hurt, but the place was ransacked. The attacks were claimed by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq or MEK as they’re often called.

The MEK is on the list of terrorist groups in both Canada and the United States. Ottawa reviewed the group’s status in December, but Public Safety Canada decided the MEK should remain on the list.

Not surprisingly, the MEK is not happy with that status. MEK has mounted an intensive and expensive lobbying effort aimed at politicians in Canada and the U.S. The group’s status is up for review in Washington and a decision is imminent.

To start off our conversation, we spoke with Elizabeth Rubin, a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine who has investigated MEK and its activities. She joined us from Brooklyn, New York.

Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) – Carolyn Bennett

The MEK spends a lot of cash lobbying in the U.S. – tens of thousands of dollars on speaker fees at million dollar conferences. The group’s efforts in Canada have been more subdued. But it has sponsored trips for Canadian members of Parliament to attend its annual rally in Paris.

Our next guest, Carolyn Bennett, is an MP who’s attended one of those rallies. Carolyn Bennett joined us in studio in Toronto.

Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK)

Well, Carolyn Bennett is not the only Canadian parliamentarian who has met the MEK close up. In 2006, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney – then Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper – spoke at a rally in Ottawa organized by a MEK-controlled group. Mr. Kenney later said he had no idea there was any such connection.

We requested an interview with Minister Kenney but received no response. We also put in a request to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, MEK’s political wing, to provide a spokesperson to appear on the show. So far they have not responded.
Download CBC radio on Mujahideen-e-Khalq

August 20, 2011 0 comments

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