1. 14 MKO Defectors Return Home
2. Ex-members to sue Iran opposition MKO leaders
3. International Arrest Warrant for MKO Members
4. MKO in Saddam’s Plan for Assassinating Bush
5. Faded hopes for Iranian exiles
Download Pars Brief – Issue No.16
Download Pars Brief – Issue No.16
An interview with Mr. Jamshid Tahmasbi about gathering in Berlin and about abusing children in the cult of Rajavi in different countries.
Q: Mr. Tahmasbi, please tell us about the purpose of this gathering before the Parliament of Germany?
A: We follow two goals. One goal is to prevent abusing children and the other is to pursuit the situation of MKO defectors, now in the US camp. We want the public and Human Rights advocates and officials to hear their words. This is the aim of our gathering.
Q: you pointed to the children. What measures have been taken in this regard?
A: Generally, blind moves by terrorist groups influence various parts of the society. Children constitute one of the most innocent groups, abused directly or indirectly. But when we discuss it particularly about Mojahedin-e khalq, its dimensions go beyond normal. This cult’s record in abusing children returns to the 60s, when they used children for moving documents, propagandistic materials, their journals, arms and hiding safe houses. In most of the cases, children were endangered and sometimes they were killed. They also used children to cover their commutes which led to killing of a number of children in street clashes. After the cult was resettled in Iraq, they first separated the children form the families and sent them to Europe and America. This had irreparable damages to the children, physically and mentally. The fate of many of these children is not known; and those who survived and reached the age of 15 or 16 were deceived and taken back again into Iraq (by promising that they could meet their parents there). In Iraq, they got their identity cards and never allowed them to leave. These pressures led to committing suicide by these people, such as Alan Mohammedi. And the ugliest form of the abuse was sexual abuse. Many of the children were abused sexually, raped; we have several cases with their names and details but we don’t release the names due to considering their honor. We have given this information to Human Rights organizations; after the US took MKO Camps under control, a number of children could escape from the camp but unfortunately we don’t have any information about some of them. Some, of course, could escape to Europe, such as Mr. Ezzati and Mr. Ehsan; we now hear about their shocking situation of themselves and in the following days more details will be presented to the public.
Q: Do you have any contact with defectors in the US Camp, or have you done anything to help them? You and many other former members are among political and human rights activists.
A: since we were aware of the anti-human policies of this cult, we started our activities-from the day coalition forces attacked Iraq- to save those who wanted to leave MKO. We tried to pave the way for their exit from Iraq. But at that time we couldn’t succeed since our activities were very limited and since the leaders of the group created many obstacles. However, we did our best. For instance, we contacted human rights organizations, politicians, and members of parliaments. In this regard we needed the real identity and situation of these people but unfortunately at that time we didn’t have access to such things. But now that dissidents and defectors are being kept in another camp under the US supervision, we have the access. Most of them contacted, we were able to get details and present the information to officials. For instance, we have talked with officials here in Germany about those who are German residents; we have been successful in this regard. But we have still a long way to go. Fortunately, unlike the beginning stages of the work (when no one was aware of the situation), now many of the officials are cooperating. We hope we could be able to help these people as soon as possible.
Q: What do you (and others, who work in this regard) expect from European countries and even the US? Do you expect them to help?
A: the most important request of these victims is to be able to decide independently. They want to choose their struggle path in their future life. They want to continue without fear, terror or pressure. They have problems in this regard. Although they live in the US camp but the cult still threatens them and puts pressure on them. In their patrols, Mojahedin threaten these people and sometime attack them. So, we ask the US forces to guarantee their security so that they can get what they want, which is a normal and ordinary life.
He spoke at a terrorist fundraiser
He is the author of a book that criticizes the U.S. government for being too soft on terrorism. He was an advocate of invading Iraq and most of the other Arab countries in the Middle East – long before 9/11. He wants us to give up a lot of our civil liberties, including submitting to a national ID card, and he’s taken to the hustings promoting an approach to the "war on terrorism" that’s more royalist than the king.
His name is Richard Perle, and he’s one of the leading and certainly one of the most visible neoconservatives in Washington, D.C., whose combative style and clear contempt for his opponents has earned him the sobriquet "Prince of Darkness."
He is also a supporter of terrorism.
Why else would he have agreed to speak at a January 24 fundraiser, billed as "A Night of Solidarity," supposedly to raise money for Iranian earthquake victims an event sponsored by groups that have links to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization?
MEK is a formerly Marxist group with odd, cultic overtones. Led by Maryam Rajavi, the self-proclaimed "President Elect" of Iran, and her husband, Massoud, head of the group’s military wing, they originally supported Khomeini when he overthrew the Shah, and carried out terroristic attacks on Americans, only to turn against the regime.
MEK took up residence in Iraq, where they were given sanctuary and armed by Saddam Hussein. They fought against their own country on the Iraqi side during the long Iran-Iraq war. During the U.S. invasion of Iraq, MEK carried out military operations in defense of the Ba’athist regime, and its main base came under attack by U.S. forces. MEK agreed to capitulate, but there was some question about to what extent they disarmed. Even today their main force remains intact.
Their fate has become a political football, pitting the U.S. State Department against the neoconservatives in Washington who now have Iran fixed in their sights. The neocons are pushing the idea that we can use the MEK to overthrow the Iranian regime: this is the same group that tried to ingratiate itself with the Bush administration by sharing "intelligence" that supposedly pointed to Iran’s intention of developing a nuclear weapons program.
U.S. law enforcement conducted a series of raids that rounded up prominent MEK cadre, closed down their offices, and froze their assets, but, operating under the protection of Washington’s War Party, these terrorists are freely going about their business, and even gaining open support from prominent U.S. government officials, like Perle. What’s interesting is that their support cuts across ideological and party lines.
It isn’t just the neocons who have been giving them their support, inside government and out: the Feminist Majority Foundation is also on board, on account of the MEK’s fervid feminism. Around half of the MEK’s fighters are women, and Ms. Rajavi is marketing herself, with some success, as a feminist icon.
In Congess, where more than a hundred legislators signed a letter of support for MEK, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) is their Boadicea, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) their Joan of Arc. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) is another of their major champions, a group that includes Reps. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Bob Filner (D-Calif.)
Writing in The Hill, Washington’s political newspaper of record, Sam Dealey gives us details on the various MEK front groups. What’s interesting is that the other groups listed, including the Justice Matters Institute and something called "Near East Policy Research," provide an object lesson in the weirdly relentless efforts of a terrorist group to implant itself in American politics.
The Justice Matters Institute, headquartered in downtown San Francisco, serves its clients a mixed salad of California-style touchy-feely ethno-politics, drenched in a feminist-flavored sauce:
"Justice Matters Institute defines a socially just society as one in which every group has a voice, every culture is respected, and every individual has equal access to resources and means of communication. Working for social justice entails working to overcome current injustices while building solutions that make a better world. "
Right on, comrade!
But one group listed as a sponsor of the fundraiser that Dealey doesn’t delve into is the mysterious "Near East Policy Research," which, along with the JMI, sent along a "solidarity message" to the fundraiser.
There is no such group going by that exact name, but there are two possibilities: one is the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israel, pro-war, pro-MEK thinktank that has defended the Rajavi cult. On their website, MINEP posts a piece by Daniel Pipes and Patrick Clawson, in which the authors deny that MEK is a terrorist organization – that’s now all in the past, they write:
"Can the MEK be useful? Yes. Western spy agencies are short on "human intelligence" meaning spies on the ground in Iran, as distinct from eyes in the sky. Coalition military commanders should seek out the MEK for information on the Iranian regime agents in Iraq."
Does it matter that MEK is a Marxist cult with a violent history, and longstanding links to the regime of Saddam Hussein and that the group helped put down the 1991 Shi’ite rebellion, in which many thousands were killed or forced to flee? Does it matter to Pipes and Clawson that support for the MEK nutballs only discredits the U.S.?
Of course not. All that matters is the neoconservative goal of overthrowing the regime in Tehran.
The other possibility is the Center for Near East Policy Research (CNEPR), the American branch of which, according to its official IRS papers, is headquartered in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Headed up by one Arnold M. Soloway, CNEPR is "a membership organization" that "helps Israel Resource News Agency maintain its operation," although now it appears the organization has since moved from Roxbury to Wellesley. The Israel Resource News Agency headquarters is listed as "Beit Agron International Press Center Jerusalem, Israel," with David Bedein as the "Bureau Chief."
CNEPR’s views are indistinguishable from WINEP’s: Israel can do no wrong, the Palestinians can do no right, and America must side with the former in every instance.
What is Israel’s interest in all this? Iran’s development of nuclear power has the Israelis threatening to bomb Iran’s alleged nuclear facilities, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is on record as saying that Tehran is now the main danger to the Jewish state. That Israel’s supporters in the U.S. are not averse to supporting a terrorist group which, nonetheless, serves Israeli interests is hardly surprising: what’s astonishing, however, is that they would do it so openly.
In France, members of MEK were rounded up after a plot to attack Iranian embassies across Europe was exposed: fanatical MEK-ites set themselves on fire in protest. Clearly, these are a bunch of dangerous radicals, who might resort to violence at any moment. When the MEK connection to the January 24 event came out, the Red Cross and La Leche International, which had agreed to lend their names, withdrew. Even Rep. Tancredo, formerly a staunch defender of the group, backpedaled, withdrawing his support for the fundraiser.
But not Richard Perle.
Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) is demanding an investigation into how an organization officially deemed a terrorist group could operate so openly in Washington. Let the process start with an inquiry into the Perle connection.
For Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board, to make a public appearance in the middle of his book tour! in front of a group that killed at least 6 U.S. citizens, and wouldn’t hesitate to kill more in pursuit of their goals, is an outrage. If someone with an Arab name and connections to Muslim organizations had dared do such a thing, he would have been shipped to Guantanamo so fast his head would’ve spun off its axis. People are being jailed and deported for much less, these days: but I guess there’s one standard for the Richard Perles of this world, and another for the rest of us.
by Justin Raimondo
CAMP ASHRAF, Iraq (AP) – The U.S. army surrounded camps of an Iranian opposition group in eastern Iraq on Friday, demanding they lay down their arms or "be destroyed."
Surrender negotiations between U.S. officials and the Mujahedeen Khalq continued past nightfall with no apparent resolution, though the Americans appeared confident of an agreement. The confrontation came three weeks after a truce between the Iranians and the army, which U.S. officials said had been a "prelude" to surrender.
But the group’s well-armed force, which for years has fought Iran’s Islamic rulers with the backing of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, poses a potential challenge to the U.S.-led coalition’s authority as Iraq’s military occupier and U.S. troops said they were prepared for full-scale combat.
U.S. Abrams tanks lined nearby highways and helicopters flew low over the low-slung sandstone buildings that are Camp Ashraf, the group’s headquarters. U.S. officials said thousands of Mujahedeen fighters were inside.
Under the April 15 truce, the Mujahedeen Khalq could keep its weapons to defend itself against Iranian attacks but had to stop manning checkpoints it had set up, with armed fighters in khaki uniforms behind sandbagged emplacements and Jeeps mounted with machine-guns.
At the time, the U.S. State Department called the agreement "a prelude to the group’s surrender."
"This has been in the works for a while. The ceasefire was a stepping stone to the capitulation agreement," military spokesman Capt. Josh Felker said.
But reports of roadblock confrontations involving the group in recent days suggested it had continued playing an active, armed role in the region. U.S. military commanders "don’t want two armed forces in the area," Felker said.
Still, he indicated the standoff with the group – listed by the United States as a terrorist organization since the 1990s – could be resolved peacefully.
"As far as I know, they are agreeing to capitulate at this time," he said.
The Mujahedeen Khalq was negotiating with Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the U.S. army’s 4th Infantry Division.
The U.S. ultimatum also came amid reports fighters loyal to an Iranian-based anti-Saddam group, the Badr Brigade, have been infiltrating into the area near the Mujahedeen’s base. The United States fears clashes between the two opposing groups.
Mujahedeen Khalq forces also contend Iranian fighters ambushed them at least once in recent days, wounding one.
Friday’s confrontation pits the United States against a group that spent a generation fighting Iran’s clerical regime – the government President George W. Bush includes in his "axis of evil."
More negotiations were planned for Sunday morning but the U.S. army wouldn’t comment further about whether Friday’s talks produced any progress.
The choices for the paramilitaries appeared bleak. U.S. military talking points gave the following guidance, using the group’s acronym: "MEK forces will be destroyed or compelled to surrender, leading to disarmament and detention."
The Mujahedeen Khalq, the People’s Warriors, is the military wing of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, an umbrella body said to unite Iran’s diverse opposition groups.
Before Saddam’s ouster, the group helped train Saddam’s elite Republican Guard units, the U.S. military said. It has several camps near Baqubah, about 70 kilometres northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad and not far from the Iranian border.
It was allied with the late ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Islamic fundamentalists during the 1979 revolution that overthrew the pro-U.S. dictatorship of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. But the new government soon banned the Mujahedeen Khalq and other groups that advocated a secular regime.
In the past, Washington deemed the Mujahedeen Khalq a terrorist organization. Iran’s clerical government has said it was hypocritical of the United States to describe the group as terrorist, yet still sanction its existence.
During the 1970s, the group was accused in attacks that killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defence projects in Iran, although the group denies targeting Americans. It was reported to have backed the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in the Iranian capital Tehran in 1979.
Congressional supporters of an Iraq-based terrorist organization kept a low profile this week after confirmation that U.S.-led coalition forces attacked their bases during the final days of the war.
The group, known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), is made up of Iranian dissidents based in Baghdad. Despite a history of violence against Americans and its common cause with former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the group developed a significant following in Congress for its opposition to Tehran’s regime.
In 1997, the State Department identified the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization. Last Tuesday, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged in a briefing at the Pentagon that the U.S. bombed MEK forces.
“We are still pursuing elements of the MEK inside Iraq,” Myers said, adding: “It’s possible some of them may surrender very soon to coalition forces.” We’re still interested in that particular group.”
House supporters of the MEK, led by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), staunchly defended the group when The Hill reported April 2 that U.S. officials were targeting their bases in Iraq.
“They’e a combatant,” a State Department spokesman said at the time. “Targeting data is being provided to the Pentagon. We believe they are undertaking some of the actions in the south [of Iraq] where enemy combatants have disguised themselves as civilians.”
Ros-Lehtinen insisted at the time that the State Department spokesman was wrong and that her sources in the U.S. government assured her the MEK was not considered a combatant.
“This group loves the United States; they’re assisting us in the war on terrorism; they’re pro-U.S.” she told The Hill. “This group has not been fighting against the U.S. It simply isn’t true. “ I have attended many classified briefings on the Hill, and never once has this group been brought up.”
Over the years, officials in the counterterrorism office at the State Department have regularly tried to meet with lawmakers who support the MEK in an effort to dissuade them.
Aides to Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House International Relations subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, did not return several calls for comment after Following confirmation from Gen. Myers confirmed that the MEK was regarded and treated as an enemy during the war.
Earlier this month, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) expressed shock upon hearing that the State Department considered the MEK combatants. “If these reports are accurate, that’s the end of it for me,” he told The Hill three weeks ago.
But citing “information of a different nature entirely from people who are closer to the scene than the State Department,” Tancredo later called The Hill to reassert his backing of the MEK. He declined to identify his sources at the time, except to say that they were with “our government”
Like Ros-Lehtinen’s office, Tancredo’s aides did not return calls this week seeking comment.
Other lawmakers who have long backed the MEK also declined comment. They are Reps. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), Bob Filner (D-Calif.), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas).
Although the MEK’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance, has garnered signatures of support from a number of U.S. lawmakers, it’s unclear whether those members were adequately informed about the group when they signed on.
Ros-Lehtinen claims 150 colleagues signed a letter she circulated last year in support of the MEK. Although the letter was released in November, Ros-Lehtinen has repeatedly declined to name those Congress members who backed her.
“A list has not been published because most members who initially signed on have withdrawn their support and the list has dwindled down to no more than a handful of Congressional supporters,”charged Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), a vocal critic of the MEK.
Several lawmakers said they asked to have their names removed when they learned more about the group. In addition, Reps. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) and Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), the chairman and ranking member of the House International Relations committee, respectively, wrote a counterletter to their colleagues providing “ful” and “accurate” information on the MEK.
The group’s supporters on Capitol Hill may decrease after Myers’ comments. On Thursday, other senior administration officials echoed Myers’ comments to reporters. “The [MEK] forces were fully integrated with Saddam Hussein’s command and control [and] therefore constituted legitimate military targets that posed a threat to coalition forces,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher in Washington.
“We know there’s a presence of the [MEK] inside of Iraq, and indeed we have been targeting them for some time,” said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks from Central Command in Doha, Qatar. “There’s work that’s ongoing right now to secure some sort of agreement that would be a cease-fire and capitulation,” he said.
On Monday, The Associated Press reported a military spokesman saying that a cease-fire had been negotiated with MEK forces in Iraq.
By Sam Dealy
An armed Iranian exile group listed as a terrorist organization by the USA and European Union may now get US support to help topple Iran’s ruling regime. The Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) has its European headquarters in Norway.
Although the MKO has been listed as a terrorist organization by the USA and EU since 1997 and its leaders are banished from most European nations, it is not listed by the United Nations.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs press spokesman Karsten Klepsvik explained Norway’s stance on the MKO to Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) on Thursday.
“The USA’s list has nothing to do with us, but in connection with the EU list, which we do follow, we have authority to pursue the group if they do something illegal in Norway,” Klepsvik said.
Support from Washington?
British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported that the Pentagon is now considering aiding the MKO as part of an overall strategy of trying to destabilize and topple Iran from within.
According to the Telegraph, the group’s “military expertise and discipline has impressed the Pentagon, which has suggested it could be renamed and operate with clandestine American help”.
The MKO has carried out several political assassinations in Iran and built up an army on the Iran border with the blessing of former Iraq head Saddam Hussein.
Middle East expert Kari Vogt at the University of Oslo is extremely skeptical to a strategy involving the MKO, whom she says is an undemocratic and violent group that has no foothold in Iran.
“They have made themselves extremely unpopular with the Iranian people. Norway has been a bit more willing than other European nations, which have gotten extremely cold feet, towards them,” Vogt said.
Norway’s Foreign Ministry has no plans to investigate MKO activities inside this country.
“If this group had been on the United Nations terror list we would have had obligations of international law to examine how they are financed and what their members do,” Klepsvik said.
Aftenposten English Web Desk – by Jonathan Tisdall
Are the Mujahideen-e-Khalq behind the Najaf massacre?
Who was responsible for the Najaf bombing, in which 125 people were killed including the leader of the pro-Iranian Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)?
As of this writing, there are at least six versions of the truth to choose from: one fingers two Iraqis and two Saudis, another blames "two Iraqis from Saddam Hussein’s fallen regime and two Arab nationals, categorized as Sunni Muslim radicals." An Australian report has two Saudis arrested in Najaf on account of an email in which they triumphantly wrote "The dog is dead," while the Gulf Daily News cites Haidar Al Mayyali, the governor of the Najaf area, as saying:
"There are several suspects, none of whom has citizenship other than Iraqi. The number of those now arrested is not greater than the number of fingers on one hand."
CNN avers that 12 suspects are being held in connection with the bombing, while ABC News is reporting 19 in the hoosegow, citing an anonymous police official who claims they’re mostly foreigners, and that "all belong to the Wahhabi sect (of Sunni Islam), and they are all connected to al-Qaeda."
That anonymous police official – cited in several of the above reports – sure gets around. The problem is that he dished out several different versions of his story. Arab nationals, former officials of the regime, Saudis, Al Qaeda terrorists: at one time or another all are named by him – or someone who sounds very much like him “ as being among the culprits. So far, only Reuters and the New York Times are going with what seems to be the official police explanation, which denies any proven link to the former regime or foreign involvement:
"Four suspects were detained, the police said, but they rejected reports quoting anonymous police sources that the suspects had been carrying identification cards from the former intelligence services or were foreigners."
So, pick your favorite culprits, according to your political prejudices or by just guessing.
As for me, I tend to believe the Times-Reuters version, if only because they don’t rely on that anonymous and oddly omnipresent police official. But there are other reasons to doubt the Al Qaeda-did-it scenario. To begin with, the idea that Osama bin Laden and Ba’athist remnants hooked up to attack a mosque is just as implausible as the Bush administration’s pre-war claims of Saddam’s links to Al Qaeda. If this is how the administration is seeking to retroactively justify the war, it won’t work.
The political goal of the Najaf mosque bombing was to limit Iranian influence in Iraq. The Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, killed in the blast, and his SCIRI organization were harbored for years in Iran, and received direct military and financial aid from Tehran. SCIRI’s goal is to set up an Iranian-style Islamic republic, and institute a legal system based on Sharia law.
Contrary to all the guff being written about how al-Hakim was a "moderate" somehow allied with the U.S., SCIRI was unique among Iraqi opposition groups” indeed, unique on the planet Earth, as far as I can tell “ in firmly rejecting U.S. offers of a subsidy. They agreed to sit on the U.S.-sponsored Governing Council, but this hardly makes the group either moderate or pro-American. SCIRI announced their opposition to the occupation before the shooting ever started, and the Ayatollah was always quite clear about his own position:
"Coalition forces are welcome in Iraq as long as they help the Iraqi people get rid of Saddam’s dictatorship, but Iraqis will resist if they seek to occupy or colonize our country”. Such resistance, the Shiite leader told a news conference in Tehran, would include ‘the use of force and arms.’"
As the dust settles, the political meaning of this horrific terrorist act could not be clearer. Iran loses big, and, with the main challenge to U.S. dominance out of the picture, the Americans win. Ignore the caterwauling about "chaos" and the U.S. supposedly losing control: they never had control to begin with. The Shi’ites comprise some 65 percent of the population, but politically the opposition is fragmented, weak, and leaderless: militarily, it is no match for the occupation forces.
Given all this, the hard-line faction of the Iranian regime is floating a not entirely implausible theory, which, for all its vituperative predictability, may contain a grain of truth. The Iranian newspaper Jomhuri-ye Eslami avers:
"The plot to assassinate Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim… was undoubtedly planned by the US and implemented by local mercenaries under US control. As far as local US mercenaries are concerned, one should not forget the role of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation -As they are Shia Iranians, the mujahedin can easily infiltrate Iraqi Shia circles."
That the U.S. government is sowing chaos where it is supposed to be keeping order is indisputable. That it is doing so intentionally seems highly improbable. But it is undeniable that the one group most opposed to the extension of SCIRI’s influence throughout Iraq is the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK).The history of this weird authoritarian socialist grouplet “ including its apparent sponsorship by the neoconservative faction in the U.S. government “ implicates it as a prime suspect in the Najaf blast.
Ideologically, the MEK Marxist, militantly feminist, and linked by an umbilical cord of financial and political support to the old Ba’athist regime – is the antipode of SCIRI, which is Islamist, militantly anti-modernist, and for all intents and purposes an agent of the Iranian regime. If the Ayatollah al-Hakim had lived to establish an Islamic Republic of Iraq, there would have been no place in it for the MEK.
Otherwise known as the Peoples Mujahideen, or the Iranian National Liberation Army (INLA), the MEK started out as a "left" faction of the Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Shah and installed the Ayatollah Khomeini as the supreme power in Tehran. The U.S., as the Shah’s sponsor and chief ally, became the principal target of MEK terrorism. A State Department report notes:
"Bombs were the Mojahedin’s weapon of choice, which they frequently employed against American targets. On the occasion of President Nixon’s visit to Iran in 1972, for example, the MKO exploded time bombs at more than a dozen sites throughout Tehran, including the Iran-American Society, the U.S. information office, and the offices of Pepsi Cola and General Motors. From 1972-75 … the Mojahedin continued their campaign of bombings, damaging such targets as the offices of Pan-American Airlines, Shell Oil Company, and British organizations."
The MEK also participated in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. After the fall of the Shah, the MEK fell out with the orthodox Shia clergy, and was attacked by the Revolutionary Guards. They began to launch terrorist attacks against the Iranian government, in which civilians were targeted. During the Iran-Iraq war, they made an alliance with Saddam Hussein, who funded them and gave them sanctuary on Iraqi territory, a tactic that succeeded in completely isolating them from the Iranian people.
Their pact with Saddam also made them plenty of enemies inside Iraq. The MEK were used to put down the Kurdish rebellions in the north, and they were also sent to help crush the 1991 Shi’ite uprising in the south where they faced what is today the SCIRI on the battlefield, and drove them over the border into Iran. After Saddam’s fall, the SCIRI returned, with Ayatollah al-Hakim at their head. But his moment in the sun didn’t last too long….
When the U.S. invaded Iraq, there was a big debate within the administration over what to do about the MEK. The neoconservatives in the Pentagon and around Douglas Feith and the Office of Special Plans want to use the Marxist terrorists as a club to bash Iran in the next phase of their war to "democratize" the Middle East. Leading neocons such as Daniel Pipes and Arnold Beichman tout the MEK as a U.S. ally, the latter hailing it as "a legitimate force for democracy and regime change in the Middle East." That’s an odd way to characterize a totalitarian cult whose commitment to "democracy" consists of having unilaterally proclaimed Maryam Rajavi “ wife of the group’s military leader, Masoud Rajavi "President Elect"of Iran.
This is the only terrorist outfit that I know of with a huge constituency on Capitol Hill: 150 members of Congress signed on to a letter in response to the banning of MEK and its front groups from the U.S.
Its bank accounts closed, the MEK public relations machine still managed to put out a full-page ad in the New York Times protesting the crackdown. The Mujahideen e-Khalq has become a symbolic issue in Washington, a rallying point for the radical neocons and their congressional amen corner.
The State Department, having designated MEK a terrorist organization, opposed utilizing the group against Tehran. U.S. diplomats were trying to convince the Iranians to hand over Al Qaeda operatives reportedly on their territory, but Tehran wouldn’t agree unless MEK was disbanded. The regime in Iran was furious because a formal agreement was signed with MEK leaders, enabling the group to "remain fully armed, but nevertheless effectively quarantined," as one analyst put it.
Back channel negotiations between Iran and the U.S. over Al Qaeda members held in Iran are opposed by the neocons, who see more "regime change" as the logical next step in the war on terrorism. They have gone so far as to meet with Iran-Contra figure Manucher Ghorbanifar, a discredited arms merchant, in order to derail U.S.-Iranian cooperation.
The cabal that lied us into the Iraq war is not above using the MEK terrorist cult to provoke Tehran and trigger a new conflict. The news that the U.S. is now reviving the Mukhabarat, Iraq’s hated secret police, in order to boost the intelligence-gathering capabilities of the occupation government is more than a case of strange bedfellows. It points directly to the prospect of a rapid escalation of the war, with the U.S. clearly preparing to expand operations into Iran. As the New York Times recently reported:
[Sabi al-] Hamed, a Mukhabarat officer since 1976, said he refused to join the revived unit when former co-workers told him that it would be cooperating with the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Mujahedeen, an Iranian opposition group that is on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. Mr. Hamed said he had worked with the group during the Iran-Iraq war and called them butchers, adding that he had seen bodies of people they had executed."
In characterizing the MEK as "mercenaries under U.S. control," Jomhuri-ye Eslami may not be too far off the mark. That is, if by "under U.S. control" they mean under the control of the parallel intelligence service set up by the neocons to carry out their own private foreign policy.
As American troops disarmed MEK, "President Elect" Maryam Rajavi fled to France, where her group was raided by the police and now faces expulsion from the country. The French charged the MEK compound was a terrorist nerve center, where acts of violence were being planned against Iranian targets and dissident members throughout Europe. Masoud Rajavi, husband of the "President Elect" and commander of the group’s armed wing, remained in Iraq, where he had been living in the home of Iraqi Gen. Ali-Hassan al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali."
The Rajavi Islamo-commies may be banned in the U.S., but in Iraq they will doubtless carry on their 35-year battle in another form. We may have seen the first results already. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time MEK has carried out terrorist activities in and around Najaf.
"Can the Mujahideen be useful?" asks Daniel Pipes, recently appointed to the board of the "U.S. Institute of Peace," a government-run think-tank. His answer:
"Yes. Western spy agencies are short on ‘human intelligence’ meaning spies on the ground in Iran, as distinct from eyes in the sky. Coalition military commanders should seek out the Mujahideen for information on the Iranian regime agents in Iraq."
Interestingly, the possibility that the MEK might be doing more than merely gathering information in post-Saddam Iraq was prefigured in an interesting piece in the Beirut Daily Star [June 6, 2003]. Ed Blanche observed the "alarm" of the Americans at the appearance of the 15,000-strong Badr Brigades, the military wing of the SCIRI, and noted:
"SCIRI leader Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, whose family was decimated by Saddam’s secret police, announced May 31 that his movement had given up its heavy weapons although it doesn’t seem to have handed them over to the Americans to focus on the political struggle. But the Badr Brigades and the INLA are mortal enemies, and the Americans may just find it useful to use the Mujahideen as a counterweight to the Iranian-backed Shiites in the stormy days ahead. The Mujahideen face final collapse if they are subdued in Iraq, or forced to disband. But given the power of Rumsfeld’s Pentagon right now, they could live to fight their enemies another day, under one guise or another."
The Mystery Terrorists of Iraq, masters of a thousand guises who knows what they’ll morph into next? The war is young, and we have a lot to look forward to: the Zoroastrian Liberation Front, the Turkmen Freedom Fighters, the Assyrian Assassins. Iraq is teeming with disgruntled grouplets for sale, cheap.
As our old friend, the anonymous "police official" cited above, spreads confusion about the Najaf massacre story throughout the Western media, his Iranian doppelganger, described by the Tehran Times as "an Iraqi analyst," adds his own spin to the mix, claiming that "traces of Mossad agents were found at the Najaf blast site." As to whether they left a calling card, this "analyst" does not say. He merely passes along rumors that the Mossad has lately made a point of "infiltrating" certain unnamed "organizations in southern Iraq." He does, however, name the MEK as having "helped Zionist operatives in this mission." In any case, he speaks with as much ersatz authority as his Western cousins, who attribute the massacre to Al Qaeda, Ba’athists, or both:
"While not ruling out the hand of the extremist groups such as al-Qaeda in the massive blast in Najaf, he noted, ‘Of course I think the massive propaganda by some Western-minded media and an emphasis on blaming al-Qaeda or remnants of the Baath party is to be considered a conscious effort to hide the role of Zionist and occupying forces in this abominable atrocity.’"
Hiding beneath the thin veneer of anonymity, competing interests spin rival versions of the same story. Adding to the cacophony and the confusion is the news that Saddam, or a voice purporting to be him, denies having anything to do with the Najaf atrocity. Anyone who scoffs at the idea that we’re in a quagmire just isn’t paying attention: we’re stuck in a news quagmire, sunk in the yawning abyss between truth and fiction.
Iran is next in the neocons’ crosshairs: make no mistake about that. And they are moving quickly. It’s the perfect diversion from the disaster unfolding in Iraq. The weapons of mass destruction Saddam never had have migrated eastward, or so we’re told, and the logic of intervention is carrying along the Bush administration and us — like a leaf in a torrent. Weather forecast for the rest of the year: stormy, with darkening war clouds punctuated by thunderbolts of warmongering rhetoric. If Israel doesn’t bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities and they’re putting out broad hints that they just might — then don’t expect George W. Bush to be deterred by an election year.
by Justin Raimondo
A human rights group Thursday leveled charges of torture, psychological abuse and even murder against an Iranian dissident organization that some members of Congress and other influential figures in Washington view as potential allies against the Islamic government in Tehran.
Human Rights Watch, the international advocacy group, made the charges in a report based on people who describe themselves as dissidents and defectors from the group, the Mujahedin al-Khalq or MEK. Former members, interviewed by human rights watch, ?reported abuses ranging from detention and persecution of ordinary members wishing to leave the organization, to lengthy solitary confinements, severe beatings, and torture of dissident members,? Human Rights Watch said.
Mohammad Hussein Sobhani, reached by telephone by MSNBC.com, confirmed that he was held in solitary confinement for eight-and-a-half years inside the group’s encampment in Iraq, from 1992 until 2001, when Saddam Hussein’s government was sheltering and arming the MEK.
I was beaten severely for disagreeing with them, but I thought it would not last. It lasted for years,? Sobhani said.
Sobhari eventually was turned over to Saddam’s government, then repatriated to Iran with a group of Iran-Iraq war POWs. He says he escaped from Iranian detention and made his way to Europe.
The MEK is on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups. However, it also is credited in 2002 and 2003 with providing information on Iran’s nuclear weapons program that revealed the existence of far more sophisticated efforts to enrich uranium than were previously known.
Can ‘terrorists’ be turned into allies?
The group began as a Marxist organization opposed to the Shah of Iran in the 1970s and took part in his overthrow in 1979. But they later broke with the Islamic regime and fled Iran, finding shelter and support from Saddam Hussein during the long Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
The MEK mutated into something of a cult of personality, led by the husband and wife team of Masoud and Maryam Rajavi, and U.S. officials says under their leadership it carried out dozens of terrorist attacks inside Iran and elsewhere in the past two decades. The MEK was still in Iraq when U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam in 2003 and is currently under ?protected persons status? ? a special category of the Geneva Convention — in their encampment outside Baghdad.
Nonetheless, the MEK has support in Congress from both the Republican and Democratic side among lawmakers who want the State Department to remove the group’s terrorist label and allow the U.S. to openly cooperate with their efforts to undermine the regime in Tehran. Among those who have called publicly for rehabilitating the MEK are Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., Rep. Ilena Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla. and Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.
Raymond Tanter, a former White House national security aide and Iran specialist at Georgetown University, is among those lobbying for the MEK’s status to be changed. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," he says.
Tanter, who co-founded a group called the Iran Policy Committee, says that Human Rights Watch has been duped by agents sent by Iran’s government to discredit the MEK.
?It is a humongous mistake for a human rights organization to promote the agenda of a rogue regime by taking at face value the claims of its intelligence agents,? he says. ?Most of the individuals cited in the Human Rights Watch report are agents of the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, including Mohammad-Hossein Sobhani," he said.
Sobhani, in the telephone interview from his exile in Europe, denied that charge.
Good Banking Deals
Tehran frequently complains that Western states accuse it of terrorism, but at the same time they allegedly shelter the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO or MEK) and even encourage its activities, which include mortar attacks and bombings in Iranian cities and assassinations of Iranian officials. Recent moves by the U.S., U.K., and Germany against the MKO may be a signal to Tehran of sensitivity to its complaints. In the U.S. case, the actual arrest of MKO fund-raisers may be a call for reciprocity in the investigation of the 1996 bombing in Saudi Arabia.
Seven people were arrested at Los Angeles’ international airport on 27 February on charges of raising over $1 million for the MKO. In a tactic common to MKO operatives, they posed as charity workers and solicited funds for orphans while displaying photos of alleged Iranian atrocities. Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent James DeSarno explained at a 28 February press conference that "[t]his cell of the MEK raised funds on behalf of a charity front known as the Committee for Human Rights or the CHR in Iran. The CHR purported to use the money for humanitarian aid. This investigation has revealed that the money was really used to support terrorist actions"
DeSarno explained that the funds were transferred to bank accounts in Turkey. From there, in at least one case, the money was transferred to a used auto parts store in Dubai. Eventually, DeSarno said, "It is believed that the money was used to buy arms such as mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs."
The operation was initiated by the German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), which informed the FBI that MKO members in Los Angeles were involved in money laundering.
In the U.K., meanwhile, the MKO was identified in a list of 21 terrorist groups under a new anti-terrorism law that aims to curtail their funding and support in Great Britain. The list, lumps the MKO with Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda, Lebanese Hizballah, HAMAS, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Abu Nidal, and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, as well as Algerian, Basque, Egyptian, Kashmiri, Sikh, and Sri Lankan groups.
he MKO, which operates under a variety of cover names (National Liberation Army of Iran, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, Organization of the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran, National Council of Resistance, Muslim Iranian Student’s Society), is designated as a terrorist organization in the State Department’s annual "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report. In May 2000 the U.S. Supreme Court refused to change the MKO’s terrorist designation. MKO operatives disrupted an April 2000 conference in Berlin, and two of them attempted to disrupt the November 2000 conference of the Middle East Studies Association in Orlando. Many Iranians view the MKO, under all its guises, with revulsion because it fought on the side of Iraq during the 1980-1988 war. During the 1970s, the group assassinated American officials and it conducted terrorist activities against the shah’s regime.
Bill Samii
The United States shut down the offices of the political wing of the Iranian opposition People’s Mujahedeen, closing a loophole that had allowed the group to operate despite being designated “terrorist” organisation.
State, Treasury and Justice departments closed the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) on Friday, placing notices on its doors declaring that it was now banned, officials said.
US federal agents acted after Secretary of State Colin Powell clarified earlier “terrorist” designations of the NCRI’s parent organisation, the People’s Mujahedeen or Mujahedeen e Khalq (MEK), they said.
No one was in the office when agents arrived, according to one official.
Telephone calls to the group’s representatives were not answered.
The order also freezes the group’s US assets and bars US citizens from making contributions to it, the officials said.
In addition, they said suspected members of the group in the United States had been notified that their continued affiliation was now illegal.
"Any continued material support for the MEK or use of its facilities or property under any of its aliases and any unauthorized dealing in property in which the MEK has an interest is a violation of US law," one official said.
Clampdown
"Its history is studded with anti-Western attacks as well as terrorist attacks on the interests of the clerical regime in Iran and abroad."
-The US State Department in the latest edition of its "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report Powell’s clarification, published in the Federal Register, said the MEK under all of its aliases – including the NCRI, the National Council of Resistance and the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) – are now considered "foreign terrorist organizations."
The designation includes "its US representative office and all other offices worldwide," Powell said.
His decision was "based on information from a variety of sources that those entities functioned as part of the MEK and have supported the MEK’s acts of terrorism," said Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman.
In a separate notice, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control declared the NCRI under all of its aliases "including its US press office" to be a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" group.
Friend or foe?
The People’s Mujahedeen was first named a "terrorist" organisation in 1997, when the administration of President Bill Clinton took the step as a conciliatory gesture to Iran.
Iran welcomed the decision at the time but until Friday the Washington office of the NCRI remained open while it fought the ban in US courts.
Amid the uncertainty over its status, the NCRI gave frequent news conferences at its office in the National Press Building, just blocks from the White House, and at Washington hotels to denounce the Iranian government.
At times, the United States used information provided by the NCRI to highlight its concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme, which Washington believes is a cover for atomic weapons development.
Confusion over the group’s status was a complicating factor during the Iraq war as US troops were forced to confront armed elements of the People’s Mujahedeen to which former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had given shelter.
Asked to address the apparent contradiction, State Department spokesmen had repeatedly demurred, referring reporters to the Justice Department which enforces US federal laws.
Exiled revolutionaries
The group – which is also considered a “terrorist” organisation by the European Union and Iran – denies all wrongdoing and maintains that it represents legitimate opponents to Tehran’s religious leadership.
With a programme that blends left-wing and Islamic ideology, it took part in the 1979 revolution in Iran, but the movement was suppressed in the years that followed and its members fled abroad with the military wing taking refuge in Iraq in 1986.
The State Department has accused the group of conducting "internal security operations in support of the government of Iraq" during Saddam’s time in power.
French crackdown
The US move against the People’s Mujahedeen follows a similar crackdown on the group in France, where police raided their headquarters in a Paris suburb in June, arresting scores of people.
The group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, was one of more than 160 people detained in the raids and her arrest outraged her followers, with a spate of self-immolation protests across Europe that left two women dead.
Rajavi and 16 others who were then placed under investigation were granted conditional release in early July after two weeks in detention, although that does not preclude charges being brought against them.
