After Saddam
Expressing dissatisfaction over MKO’s activities in Iraq, an Iraqi analyst said "reports on Baghdad-Washington agreements for supporting this group are baseless."
In an interview with Mehr correspondent on a report published in Iraqi website, Al-Malaf, which said Iraqi and American officials had agreed to support MKO, Bassem Al-Awadi said he didn’t think the report was true.
"The reason I strongly reject this report is that Iraqi government’s new policy is based on not interfering in neighboring countries’ affairs; this has been approved by the parliament and is part of Iraqi constitution."
Bassem Al-Awadi, Arab media activist who’s no in London, added: "All Iraqi parties involved in Iraq’s political process stress that Iraq should not interfere in the internal affairs of its neighbors."
"Mojahedin-e Khalq has conducted hostile operations against Iran and tries to strike the country," Awadi said.
"I strongly reject reports that MKO is using Iraqi soil as a base to attack Iran."
Awadi expressed dissatisfaction over the activities of MKO inside Iraq and said: "The fact is that this organization helped former regime of Saddam Hussein to attack Iraqis."
"With respect to what was said, one can conclude that the report is false and that Iraqi government would never make such decision".
Al-Malaf, quoting Shirvan Al-Vaeli, had reported that "Iraqi and US officials have agreed on supporting terrorist MKO". Meanwhile, Shirvan Al-Vaeli has accused the MKO of creating unrest in Iraq.
Mehr News, April 26, 2007
"Britain is the world’s oldest democracy. It is undemocratic, however, for it to break the law by refusing to remove the PMOI from the list," said Lord King of West Bromwich from Tony Blair’s ruling Labour Party addressing a scanty mob supporting the terrorist MKO. The pack, reported now to be on its 26th day, has gathered outside the British Foreign Office in London to protest the continued refusal of the British government to remove the name of MKO from the terrorist list.
Mr. King’s remark challenging the UK’s democracy for the just decision of keeping the proscribed MKO on the list means far beyond support for a terrorist cult. In his lexicon, democracy is defined as support for the terrorists and unleashing them into the society which explicitly challenges his country’s past practice of democracy.
Democracy being so defined, the terrorists are emboldened to draw back the guns under the gowns and to wear mask of pro-democracy.
mojahedin.ws – 28/04/2007
Iraqi Intelligence Minister Sherwan Alvaeli said some European countries have announced their readiness to host agents of the terrorist Mujahideen Khalq Organization.
According to IRNA, Alvaeli noted previously the Iranian government had also announced an amnesty for members of MKO who had not participated in terrorist operations.
Alvaeli added that currently 4,000 MKO members are residing in Ashraf Camp under the protection of the US troops.
Earlier, chief prosecutor of Iraq’s Supreme Criminal Court, Ja’afar Al-Mousavi, told Baghdad-based Al-Mutamer newspaper that agents of the MKO do not enjoy any legal immunity in Iraq.
Al-Mousavi added that MKO is accused of financial corruption, crimes against Iraqi people and wastage of Iraqi assets.
He announced that a prosecution team is collecting evidence and documents against the terrorist group to try its members.
Referring to the fact that their presence in Iraq is illegal, Al-Mousavi said Iraq’s Supreme Criminal Court will conduct the trial of MKO ringleaders.
Meanwhile, an Iraqi news source revealed that the camp of MKO in Iraq has turned into a training ground for Al-Qaeda terrorists.
IRNA quoted Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party as reporting on April 3 that hundreds of terrorists are undergoing training courses in Ashraf Camp in Baquba, where MKO agents are based, under the auspices of the terrorist group ‘Ansar Al-Islam’.
An Iraqi political official said on condition of anonymity that about 60 terrorists, accused of murder, have escaped to Ashraf Camp to undergo special short-term courses to conduct assassination and terrorist operations against political figures and governmental organizations.
IranMania – 27/04/2007
BAGHDAD (AFP) – French presidential candidate Segolene Royal received a campaign endorsement from an unexpected quarter on Saturday when an Iraq-based Iranian rebel movement held a rally to support her.
The People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI), which is listed by the European Union and United States as a terrorist group, claimed that around 4,000 Iranian exiles and Iraqi supporters had gathered in the Iraqi town of Ashraf, northeast of Baghdad.
The guerrilla organisation has a long-standing enmity for the outgoing French President Jacques Chirac and his favoured successor, the Socialist Royal’s right-wing opponent Nicholas Sarkozy.
Photographs released by the group appeared to show a crowd of thousands in a hangar-like hall, and a panel of women behind a banner reading "Women of Iraq, Iran and France: with Segolene, for peace, against fundamentalism."
The women sat in front of three flags — those of Iran, France and Iraq.
PMOI spokesman Shahria Kia said the rally was attended by his group and by Iranian and Iraqi opposition groups who feel Royal would be a better ally than previous French presidents in their battle with the Tehran regime.
A statement from the groups, released to AFP, read: "We ask all of our friends, particularly all the French Muslims, to vote for Ms Royal."
"We are certain that with this choice France will retrieve its values, and will stand beside the oppressed people of Iraq and Iran against fundamentalism and terrorism exported by Iran," it added.
The PMOI, also known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq Organisation (MKO), was founded in 1965 by leftist students at Tehran university, and fled Iran after clashing with the Islamist government set up in the 1979 revolution.
It was based in exile in France until 1986, when the then prime minister, Chirac, expelled them.
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq became the group’s new home, and they developed a guerrilla army to launch cross-border attacks into Iran.
The group’s bases were bombed by the US military during the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, but after the fall of Saddam a ceasefire was signed with the Americans, who keep the activists under guard in Ashraf.
Nevertheless, the US State Department continues to list the PMOI as a terrorist organisation, as does the European Union despite a ruling last year by the European Court of Justice that this was unfair.
Female activist Ategheh Khorsand, who addressed the gathering on behalf of the PMOI, said: "French policy, during past 20 years, towards Iran and Iraq is not something for France to be proud of.
"The only concern of this policy has been to attract consent of the religious dictatorship in Iran for financial and trade concession by suppressing the members of the Iranian resistance in France," she added.
Socialist Party flag-bearer Royal will face Sarkozy in the final round of France’s presidential election, which will choose a successor to the PMOI’s original nemesis Chirac.
In June 2003, when Sarkozy was French interior minister, French police raided several alleged PMOI safe houses in France and arrested 160 suspects. Sarkozy warned that the group was trying to make France its rear base.
By Dave Clark, AFP, April 29, 2007
Following unconventional practices in its power struggle, MKO’s current choice of tactic is ‘survival in split’, that is, taking advantage of the existing political gap between Iran and other countries for its own political survival and the fulfillment of the cult-like objectives. Any instance of meeting between Iranian authorities and the West provide an opportunity for the terrorist Mojahedin to intrude so as to escalate the tension.
For instance, now with the beginning of a recent meeting between Javier Solana and Ali Larijani in Ankara to further negotiation on the issue of Iran’s nuclear programs, the cultist Mohammad Mohaddessin, on behalf of MKO, grabs the chance to condemn the event. It is not because he is concerned about the regime’s nuclear threat; rather it is a precious opportunity to correlate an internationally concerned dispute with the just proscription of a terrorist group with a notorious, bloody past.
Inducing the EU to take a rather harsh policy in dealing with Iran, as compelled by its violent nature, MKO’s foreign chair challenges its inclusion in the EU terror list at a time when the EU intends to declare the reasons for blacklisting it and the like groups. In a part of his message of condemnation we read:
A firm policy would include the imposition of comprehensive technological, military, diplomatic and oil embargo on the clerical regime and by removing obstacles that EU has created for change in Iran, the most important of which is the inclusion of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran in the EU terror list and the refusal to remove the PMOI from the watch list despite the clear ruling of the EU Court of Justice in annulling the designation.
On 20 November 2006, the she-guru of Mojahedin cult, Maryam Rajavi, congratulated Mrs. Segolene Royal on her victory as the Socialist Party’s candidate for the 2007 French presidential elections.
In her message of congratulation, Rajavi, certainly coming upon some senses of personal and political similarity, addressed her saying that “the participation of women in political leadership is a necessary condition for the establishment of democracy. This choice of the Socialists may be an indication of the electoral direction of the people of France as a whole”.
Mrs. Segolene has, however, shown no clear position concerning the cult since any indication of supporting a proscribed terrorist group, whose case is still open in the French counter-terrorist court, might be a gamble on her presidential victory. The silence seems to have emboldened the group to take a much daring step.
Early this week, a number of sympathizers, a majority of whom were hired-activists, gathered in front of the French National Assembly in Paris to urge the French presidential candidates, mainly Mrs. Segolene, to protest against the position of the French government within the EU Council of Ministers that intends to maintain the MKO in the terror list.
Does MKO really need to spend such big sums of money to buy a vote of acquittal? The best and easiest way is to present sound evidences that controvert the EU reasons for its inclusion in the list!
mojahedin.ws – 26/04/2007
“…for the last forty years, our thought has been trapped in hollow structures of language, a stale, dead but immensely successful rhetoric. This has represented, in my view, a defeat of the intelligence and of the will.” — Harold Pinter Here is the neocon’s preferred ‘democratic’ alternative for Iran. Their vision of a Brave New World would make Aldous Huxley shudder. In a way I feel sad for the individuals in the organization as it is clear their leadership is allowing them to be used as pawns in order to forward their personal interests. Once they have served their purpose, the pragmatic neocons will be quick to look dissociate themselves from an organization with such a profoundly fanatic bent. Imperial powers always prefer weak and colorless surrogates with no constituency of their own, so that they are easier to control.
In certain respects the MeK appear to me like a reincarnation of the The Assassins of Hasan bin Sabah.
One Response to “BBC on the Mujahedin-e-Khalq”
naj Says:
April 3rd, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Well, at least Hassan Sabbah had a romanic air around his Alamout and his doped followers! These dudes are simply pathetic and delusional, with their president elect in exile!!!!
They have no popular ground in Iran!
Much attention has been given to the Bush Administration’s preparations for possible war against Iran as well as its drive to impose sanctions. Meanwhile, a less noticed policy has been unfolding, one that may in time prove to have grave consequences for the region. There is a covert war underway in Iran, still in its infancy, but with disturbing signs of impending escalation. In the shadowy world of guerrilla operations, the full extent of involvement by the Bush Administration has yet to be revealed, but enough is known to paint a disturbing picture.
The provision of aid to anti-government forces offers certain advantages to the Bush Administration. No effort needs to be expended in winning support for the policy. Operations can be conducted away from the public eye during a time of growing domestic opposition to the war in Iraq, and international opinion is simply irrelevant where the facts are not well known. In terms of expenditures, covert operations are a cost-effective means for destabilizing a nation, relative to waging war.
There is nothing new in the technique, and it has proven an effective means for toppling foreign governments in the past, as was the case with socialist Afghanistan and Nicaragua. In Yugoslavia, U.S. and British military training and arms shipments helped to build up the secessionist Kosovo Liberation Army from a small force of 300 soldiers into a sizable guerrilla army that made the province of Kosovo ungovernable. The very chaos that the West did so much to create was then used as the pretext for bombing Yugoslavia.
According to a former CIA official, funding for armed separatist groups operating in Iran is paid from the CIA’s classified budget. The aim, claims Fred Burton, an ex-State Department counter-terrorism agent, is “to supply and train” these groups “to destabilize the Iranian regime.” (1)
The largest and most well known of the anti-government organizations is Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), operating out of Iraq. For years MEQ had launched cross-border attacks and terrorist acts against Iran with the support of Saddam Hussein. Officially designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in 1997, and disarmed of heavy weaponry by the U.S. military six years later, Washington has since come to view MEK in a different light. Three years ago, U.S. intelligence officials suggested looking the other way as the MEK rearmed and to use the organization to destabilize Iran, a recommendation that clearly has been accepted. (2)
Accusing MEK of past involvement in repressive measures by former president Saddam Hussein, the current Iraqi government wants to close down Camp Ashraf, located well outside of Baghdad, where many of the MEK fighters are stationed. But the camp operates under the protection of the U.S. military, and American soldiers chauffeur MEK leaders. The Iraqi government is unlikely to get its way, as the MEK claims to be the primary U.S. source for intelligence on Iran. (3)
U.S. officials “made MEK members swear an oath to democracy and resign from the MEK,” reveals an intelligence source, “and then our guys incorporated them into their unit and trained them.” Reliance on the MEK began under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with the direction of Vice President Dick Cheney, and soon MEK soldiers were being used in special operations missions in Iran. “They are doing whatever they want, no oversight at all,” said one intelligence official of the MEK’s American handlers. (4)
The Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), is another organization that conducts cross-border raids into Iran. Israel provides the group with “equipment and training,” claims a consultant to the U.S. Defense Department, while the U.S. gave it “a list of targets inside Iran of interest to the U.S.” Aid to guerrilla groups, the consultant reports, is “part of an effort to explore alternative means of applying pressure on Iran.” (5) It has been noted that PJAK has recently shown an impressive gain in capability during its operations, both in terms of size and armament, a fact that can surely be attributed to Western support. (6)
Jundallah (God’s Brigade) is an extremist Sunni organization operating in Sistan-Balochistan province that has been launching armed attacks, planting explosives, setting off car bombs, and kidnapping. Based in Pakistan, it is unclear if this group is connected with the Pakistani organization of the same name, which has ties with Al-Qaeda. (7) Jundallah denies that it has any links to either Al-Qaeda or to the U.S. But Iranian officials claim that a recently arrested Jundallah guerrilla has confessed that he was trained by U.S. and British intelligence officers. There is no way to verify that such a confession has actually taken place, nor its reliability as it may have come as a result of coercion, but the claim would not be inconsistent with U.S. policy elsewhere in Iran. (8)
It is probable that in the coming months the Bush Administration will expand support for anti-government forces in order to more effectively destabilize Iran and gather intelligence. Already U.S. Special Forces are operating in Iran collecting data, planting nuclear sensors, and electronically marking targets. Separatist forces have cooperated in those efforts. “This looks to be turning into a pretty large-scale covert operation,” comments a former CIA official. U.S. and Israeli officials are establishing front companies to help finance that covert war. (9) To fully capitalize on ethnic discontent along Iran’s periphery, the U.S. Marine Corps has commissioned a study from defense contractor Hicks and Associates on Iran and Iraq’s ethnic groups and their grievances. (10)
That these separatist organizations clearly engage in terrorism hasn’t deterred the Bush Administration from backing them. The potential for baneful consequences is considerable. CIA support for the anti-Soviet and anti-socialist Mujahedin in Afghanistan spawned a worldwide movement of Islamic extremism. Western support for ethnic secessionists shattered Yugoslavia and the invasion of Iraq fired the flames of ethnic discord and made a shared life impossible. It remains to be seen if the Bush Administration can succeed in achieving its goal of effecting regime change in Iran. That process could have devastating consequences for the people of Iran. Those officials in the Bush Administration who advocated and implemented covert operations “think in Iran you can just go in and hit the facilities and destabilize the government,” explains a former CIA official. “They believe they can get rid of a few crazy mullahs and bring in the young guys who like Gap jeans, [and] all the world’s problems are solved. I think it’s delusional.” (11)
Gregory Elich is the author of Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit. Gregory Elich is a frequent Global Research contributor.
http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Liberators-Militarism-Mayhem-Pursuit/dp/1595265708
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NOTES
1. William Lowther and Colin Freeman, “US Funds Terror Groups to Sow Chaos in Iran,” Sunday Telegraph (London), February 25, 2007.
2. “Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK or MKO), Global Security.org Syed Saleem Shahzad, “Sleeping Forces Stir in Iran,” Asia Times, June 26, 2003.Gian Marco Chiocci and Alessia Marani, “Iranian Mujaheddin Gather Funds in Italy,” Il Giornale (Milan), October 2, 2006.
1. Ernesto Londono and Saad al-Izzi, “Iraq Intensifies Efforts to Expel Iranian Group,” Washington Post, March 14, 2007.
2. Larisa Alexandrovna, “On Cheney, Rumsfeld Order, US Outsourcing Special Ops, Intelligence to Iraq Terror Group, Intelligence Officials Say,” The Raw Story, April 13, 2006.
3. Seymour Hersh, “The Next Act,” New Yorker, November 27, 2006.
4. James Brandon, “PJAK Claims Fresh Attacks in Iran,” Global Terrorism Analysis, March 6, 2007.
5. Ali Akbar Dareini, “Explosion Kills 11 Members of Iran’s Elite Revolutionary Guards,” Associated Press, February 14, 2007.
6. Broadcast, Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (Teheran), February 17, 2007.
7. Richard Sale, “Cat and Mouse Game Over Iran,” UPI, January 26, 2005.
8. Guy Dinmore, “US Marines Probe Tensions Among Iran’s Minorities,” Financial Times (London), February 23, 2006.
9. Julian Borger and Ian Traynor, “Now US Ponders Attack on Iran,” The Guardian (London), January 18, 2005.
Center for Research on Globalization By Gregory Elich 23 March 2007
TEHRAN, April 23 (MNA) — Apparently the U.S. and British authorities have become so desperate for an alibi that they have readily embraced the assertion of the infamous anti-Iranian Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), which is listed as a terrorist group by Britain, the United States, and the European Union.
A spokesman of this group, which vegetates in the shadow of the U.S. Army at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, said that Iran’s capture of 15 British military personnel, who illegally entered Iran’s territorial waters on March 23, was planned in advance.
But David Stringer of the Associated Press immediately realized that he owed it to his readers to mention that the MKO spokesman offered no evidence to support his claims. This group, along with the old Iranian monarchists, like their financiers in the White House and Downing Street, need no evidence to fabricate stories.
It should be noted that three years ago, U.S. intelligence circles suggested rearming the MKO and using it to destabilize Iran, a recommendation that has apparently readily been implemented. The implementation of this plan makes the U.S. government complicit in the terrorist acts that have been carried out inside Iran. The New York Times recently revealed that the camp operates under the protection of the U.S. military and that U.S. troops chauffer MKO operatives.
Another organization that carries out cross-border attacks on Iranian villages is the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), which is supported with equipment and training by Israeli special forces. This group receives its “lists of targets inside Iran” from U.S. intelligence agents.
A third terrorist organization that operates on the border between Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan Province and the countries of Pakistan on the southeast and Afghanistan on the northeast is Jundallah (God’s Brigade), an extremist Sunni group. Jundallah has been launching armed attacks on the civilian population, planting bombs, and kidnapping travelers. The group has its bases in Pakistan and apparently is funded, trained, and armed by the U.S. and British armies in Afghanistan and in the Iran-Pakistan border regions.
According to Greg Elich of www.GlobalResearch.ca, U.S. and Israeli officials are setting up front companies to help finance future covert activities in Iran. An old adage comes to mind when thinking about how the CIA armed and financed Osama bin Laden and the Mujahedin in Afghanistan during the 1980s to undermine the Soviet Union: History repeats itself; the first time is tragedy, the second time is farce.
It is now common knowledge that U.S. special operation forces in Iraq have been given the task of kidnapping Iranian diplomats and officials in Iraq and the countries where U.S. intelligence agents operate freely. For example, U.S. forces led a commando-type, helicopter-borne raid in Irbil, northern Iraq, and grabbed five Iranian diplomatic liaison personnel in January 2007.
These special units, operating without the permission of the Kurdish authorities, reportedly used stun guns against the men while seizing office computers, ransacking and intentionally destroying the property inside, and taking down the Iranian flag from the rooftop of the raided building as a demonstration of animosity and disrespect toward the Iranian people. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani as well as one of the country’s most powerful Shia leaders condemned the raid, calling it an attack on Iraq’s sovereignty.
Furthermore, the United States refused to allow any communication with the detained officials until the incident involving the 15 British sailors and marines was brought into a process of negotiation. The U.S. was pressured to agree to allow the Iranian government to communicate with the Iranian captives, a promise yet to be fulfilled.
An Iranian diplomat, Jalal Sharafi, the second secretary of the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, who was kidnapped in Iraq by U.S. forces and held for over two months, was released earlier this month. Mr. Sharafi told Iran’s state news agency IRNA that he was subjected to torture “day and night”. He said, “I was kidnapped on a Baghdad street while shopping by officials who had Iraqi Defense Ministry ID cards and were riding in U.S. forces vehicles.”
Mr. Sharafi said he was taken to a military base near Baghdad airport and questioned in Arabic and English. “The CIA officials’ questions focused mainly on Iran’s presence and influence in Iraq. When faced with my responses on Iran’s official ties with the Iraqi government, they increased the torture,” he stated.
Apparently, this is the customary method that the United States government, which likes to brag about its ‘love of democracy and concern for human rights’, treats foreign detainees and kidnapped individuals.
What respect for human rights!
Where are the human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, to expose and condemn Washington’s routine practice of human rights violations?
Earlier this year, former Iranian deputy defense minister Alireza Askari, who was in Turkey to attend a conference, disappeared into thin air, and his family in Tehran has not heard from him since. Iranian officials said Askari was kidnapped by Western agents.
These attacks, not highly nor widely publicized in the U.S. press, are part of the covert front of the U.S. and British forces.
Professor Paul Sheldon Foote’s comment on the article:
America’s worst enemies are not in the Middle East. America’s worst enemies are the neo-conservative (admirers of Trotsky and of Machiavelli) traitors who support America’s terrorist enemies: MEK (MKO, PMOI, Rajavi Cult, or Pol Pot of Iran). When will the major American media expose the long history of the Rajavi Cult in terrorist operations, from killing American military officers and Rockwell International employees to working on secret terrorist missions with the American military?
Ardeshir Ommani, Mehr News, April 23, 2007
http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsPrint.aspx?NewsID=475131