Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

International Arrest Warrant for MKO Members

Swiss-based newspaper of "Le Temp" revealed in a report that six MKO members who commuted in UN Commissions were banned according to an international arrest warrant which was issued by Interpol.

Le Temp wrote: "It’s about six opponents of regime in Tehran, who lobbied in the UN Commissions. A year ago, they were banned from entering UN buildings due to prosecution by Iranian officials. In March 2003, Libyan head of Human Rights Commission at that time, replied to Iranian officials’ letter that for preventing people from entering these buildings there should be convincing reasons, such as an international arrest warrant. In the next year, 2004, the warrant had been issued by Interpol. So, the doors of the UN were automatically closed on these dangerous terrorists."

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

A Cult is Trying to Hijack Our Iran Policy

These fanatics seek to replace Tehran’s religious tyranny with their own.

About 15,000 people, most of them Iranian Americans or exiles, recently flocked to Washington to denounce the fundamentalist Islamic government of Iran. The crowd shouted slogans against Iran’s reviled clerical regime and hoisted placards encouraging President Bush to take whatever action necessary – including preemptive military strikes – to ensure that Iran did not develop nuclear weapons.

By all appearances, the march seemed like a protest by concerned Iranians who supported regime change in Iran. In reality, it was a meticulously orchestrated political rally in support of a violent, pseudo-Marxist Iranian religious cult – the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, also known as the Mujahedin Khalq (MEK) – an organization that has been on U.S. and European Union terrorist watch lists for years.

Ever since the invasion of Iraq, the MEK (and its Paris-based political front, the National Council of Resistance in Iran) has tried to establish itself as the Iranian equivalent of Ahmad Chalabi’s "government in exile," the Iraqi National Congress – and not without success. Like the INC before the war, the MEK has advocates in the highest levels of government. And like the INC, the MEK has been inundating the U.S. intelligence community with uncorroborated and, according to some intelligence officials, highly suspect information meant to encourage the White House to carry out the same policy of regime change in Iran that it did in Iraq. But the United States will probably discover that the MEK – just like the INC – can’t be trusted.

The MEK, formed in the 1960s as one of several anti-imperialist organizations struggling to overthrow the oppressive and corrupt regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, gained widespread fame by killing dozens of the shah’s political cronies, as well as several U.S. soldiers and civilian contractors who were working in Iran at the time. But after the shah’s expulsion in 1979, the MEK found itself left behind in the ensuing power struggle over who would control the new Iran. Neither the secular democrats who formed the provisional government nor the religious factions who followed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wanted anything to do with the MEK’s Marxist agenda

Reza Aslan is the author of the forthcoming book, "No God but God: The

Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam," to be published by Random House

Los Angeles Times  –  December 14, 2004

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Charity Event May Have Terrorist Link

Pentagon Adviser Who Spoke at Function Thought Money Was for Quake Victims

Pentagon adviser Richard N. Perle, a strong advocate of war against Iraq, spoke last weekend at a charity event that U.S. officials say may have had ties to an alleged terrorist group seeking to topple the Iranian government and backed by SaddamHussein.

The event, attended by more than 3,000 people Saturday at the Washington Convention Center, generated enough concerns within the administration that officials debated whether they had the legal authority to block the event, U.S. officials said yesterday. FBI agents attended it and, as part of a continuing investigation, the Treasury Department on Monday froze the assets of the event’s prime organizer, the Iranian-American Community of Northern Virginia.

Perle, in an interview, said he was unaware of any involvement by the terrorist group, known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), and believed he was assisting the victims of the Bam earthquake when he delivered the paid speech.

"All of the proceeds will go to the Red Cross," Perle said. Informed that the Red Cross had announced before the event it would refuse any monies because of the event’s "political nature," Perle said: "I was unaware of that." Perle declined to say how much he received.

The Web site for the $35-a-person event, billed as "a night of solidarity with Iran," flashed between references to support for "the Iran earthquake victims" and "a referendum for regime change in Iran." One administration official said that the FBI determined that at least three of the sponsoring organizations were associated with the MEK, while a senior Treasury official said "there were general indications the MEK may have an interest in the event," but it could not yet prove it.

The day before the function, Treasury sent a letter to the Convention Center warning that the "MEK may have an interest in this event or may attempt to use the event to raise funds." But the Treasury official said officials moved cautiously because in general they did not want to chill possible charitable acts. "This is what makes terrorist financing so complex," he said. "You often have a blending of purposes and interests."

No one answered the phone at the Iranian-American Community of Northern Virginia, and messages seeking comment were not returned.

The MEK, though listed on the State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations since 1997, in the past year has been the subject of an administration tug of war over its status. The group maintained for the past decade thousands of fighters armed with tanks, armored vehicles and artillery in three camps northeast of Baghdad along the Iraq-Iran border. U.S. analysts concluded its primary support came from Hussein’s government.Nevertheless, some Pentagon officials considered the MEK as a possible vanguard against the Iranian government, which they viewed as a threat in the region. But in May President Bush ordered the group surrounded and disarmed. Even then, reports persisted of an easy-going relationship between the military and the MEK forces, leading the White House to clarify late last year that the MEK is "part of the global war on terrorism" and its members "are being screened for possible involvement

in war crimes, terrorism and other criminal activities."

Jacki Flowers, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross, said the relief agency had been contacted by the sponsors about receiving funds raised at the event several weeks before it took place. But the Red Cross decided to reject the proceeds once it became aware that the event was "political in nature," specifically the promotion of regime change. She said accepting the funds would "compromise our fundamental principles of neutrality and impartiality."

Perle, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, said he was contacted by the Premiere Speakers Bureau in mid-January about giving the keynote speech. He asked for more information about the sponsoring organizations and received a letter saying aid would be coordinated though the Red Cross and describing the event as "solidarity with earthquake victims in Iran and an evening for Iranian Resistance."

The Iranian Resistance is often an alias for the MEK. In August, the State Department shut down the U.S. offices of the political arm of the MEK, known as National Council of Resistance of Iran.

He said the hall was full of families and children and "it did not have an aura of an event with terrorist sponsorship."

Raymond Tanter, a University of Michigan professor who introduced Perle, has long maintained that the MEK does not belong on the list of foreign terrorist organizations. He said MEK was never mentioned in speeches, "but I did hear references to Camp Ashraf," which is where U.S. troops are holding MEK fighters.

Staff writer Robin Wright contributed to this report.

By Glenn Kessler  –  Washington Post Staff Writer 

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Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

Laughing for The War

Minority warmongers laugh at Majority peace-seekers!

Terrorist brutes laugh at the victims of terrorism!

Ungrateful traitors laugh at decomposition of their country!

Mercenary hypocrites laugh at masses (of people)!

“ but at the day of judgment, terrorist brutal warmongers will cry.

When Khorramshahr was freed from the occupation of Baath army, Iranian masses celebrated and bowed to the Iranian resistance to scandalized warmonger enemy. But at that time, mercenaries who had camped in the home of Iran’s enemy were upset from this victory. From that day up to 6 years later, when they separated the city of Mehran and presented it to their master, they have always been beating the drum of war, celebrated and laughed.

Ceasefire was a flaming charcoal into their throats; so they sought another war with defining the strategy of “spark and war”, wishing (like a vulture) to take advantage of the outcome of the events. Suddenly, the bloodthirsty master was hunted by another hunter and hungry vultures, which hoped to stay, mourned for their godfather.

Now, the strategy of “spark and war”, is being followed by those very vultures in a larger scale and whenever a dragon threatens Iran of making a war against it, these vultures congratulates the bats laughingly!

Prostitutes, who relied on military victories of a devil like Saddam, are now waiting for a military attack against Iran in order to take advantage of the events. Clearly, they want to show themselves as modern, peace-seekers and human rights protectors in the nonsense they say, that’s why they appear with mummy face in European Parliament and add that”no war, no compliance, only let the resistance (cult) liberate Iran” and then they write this very bluff in Herald to pretend that they’re against the war!! But they agree with terrorism under the name of ”liberating movement”! and they think that if a wolf pretends to be a dove, others will easily accept!

When Iranian cities were hit vainly by Iraqi missiles, Massoud Rajavi asked Saddam Hussein to stop bombings!! And then claimed that his requests were signs of his friendship with Iranian people! And then he ordered his forces to fulfill the uncompleted missions of Saddam Hussein by mortaring.

We remember that he called peace”the execution rope of regime” and said that the fall of regime following the peace is certain. He did this to get the figure of peace-seeking! And when the ceasefire was put to practice, they started second war with the strategy of “spark and war” and this is how they were registered in the memory of Iranians, and in the history of mercenaries, as dirty opportunists.

Now that they deny the war and promote the liberation of Iran by Mojahedin, they have initiated exactly the same previous tactics. The tactics which have taken the form of this strategy that “basically, the war has become a kind of sadism for Mojahedin which makes them happy, and they are fed from the bloodshed; and they are waiting for a big war against Iran”. But they are ignoring 3 points. First, warmongers are aware of MKO’s inefficiency and believe that these cursed ones have no base in Iran; second, they are well aware that if Mojahedin could do anything they would have done something when supported by Saddam. Third and above all, God scrambles all the equations of warmongers and turns these equations against themselves and restrains dragons, vultures and dictators from convenience and relief, and also scandalizes them in both worlds;The time and history will confirm this claim.

Shahin Torabi

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Appeals court reinstates terror indictments

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A federal appeals court reinstated indictments against seven Los Angeles residents accused of raising money for a terror organization with links to ousted Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein.

In a victory for the Bush administration’s war on terror, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday reversed a Los Angeles federal judge who declared the 1996 terror financing law unconstitutional.

The law makes it illegal to funnel money – "material support" – to organizations the State Department says are linked to terrorism, about 30 groups in all.

Before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the government rarely used the terror law. The administration subsequently has used that law to win dozens of terror convictions nationwide, from Lackawanna, N.Y., to Seattle and Portland, Ore.

One legal expert criticized the decision.

"This is a troubling result for a nation that believes in freedom of association," said David Cole, an expert on the law in question at the Georgetown University Law Center.

The case stems from a 2001 indictment against the seven defendants for allegedly providing several hundred thousand dollars to the Mujahedin-e Khalq, which the appeals court said "participated in various terrorist activities against the Iranian regime" and "carried out terrorist activities with the support of Saddam Hussein’s regime."

U.S. District Judge Robert Takasugi invalidated the law, saying it did not provide the groups a proper forum to contest their terror designations.

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based federal appeals court overruled that decision and went a step further, saying individuals accused of supporting the listed groups cannot challenge whether the groups should be listed.

The government, the court said, must prove the "fact that a particular organization was designated at the time the material support was given, not whether the government made a correct designation." The decision mirrors a ruling this year by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., upholding the conviction of a man who funneled money to the militant Hezbollah organization while insisting he had a right to challenge that group’s listing.

"The Justice Department is pleased that yet another court has upheld the constitutionality of the material support statute, a key weapon in our arsenal of legal remedies in the war on terror," spokesman John Nowacki said. "Stopping the flow of money and other resources to terrorists is critical to our success, and the department will continue to pursue those who provide material support for terrorist objectives."

The seven Los Angeles defendants said it was a violation of their First Amendment rights to be prohibited from contributing money to groups they say are not terror organizations, and they should be afforded the right to prove the group in question should not be on the State Department’s list.

Writing for the majority, Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld said the First Amendment did not provide unlimited speech, and even allows limits on campaign contributions.

"It would be anomalous indeed if Congress could prohibit the contribution of money for television commercials saying why a candidate would be a good or bad choice for political office, yet could not prohibit contribution of money to a group designated a terrorist organization," Kleinfeld wrote.

Joining Kleinfeld were Kim McLane Wardlaw and William A. Fletcher.

According to the indictment, the Los Angeles defendants solicited donations at the Los Angeles International Airport and wired money to a Mujahedin-e Khalq bank account in Turkey. The group had unsuccessfully tried to get removed from the terror list.

No court date has been set for the seven.

The case is United States v. Afshari, 02-50355.

By DAVID KRAVETS, AP Legal Affairs Writer – Bakersfield. Com  – December 21st, 2004

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Canada

Guerrillas claim links to Canada

Iranians captive in Iraq

Canadian government officials visited a former Iranian guerrilla base north of Baghdad last month and met with dozens of detained members of a militant group who say they come from Canada.

After reports U.S. troops were holding several Canadian members of an outlawed faction called Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), Ottawa dispatched two envoys to the group’s headquarters.

Thirty-seven of the MEK members told the officials they were Canadian citizens or landed immigrants, the Department of Foreign Affairs said. In all, 81 are claiming links to Canada, a lawyer said.

Authorities are trying to verify their immigration status. They are being held at Camp Ashraf, which was the MEK’s military headquarters until U.S. forces captured and disarmed it last year.

The MEK is a militant group that has been fighting for more than two decades to overthrow the Iranian government. Saddam Hussein financed the group and gave it a military base for staging attacks against his neighbour.

Thousands of Iranian expatriates made the trek to the camp 100 kilometres west of the Iran-Iraq border to wage war against Tehran’s hardline Islamic regime .Among them were a handful of Canadians.

The camp was disarmed by U.S. troops in June, 2003, and the 4,000 inhabitants are now being detained there by a battalion while the U.S. and Iraqi governments decide their fate. Tehran wants them deported to Iran.

The MEK, or People’s Combatants, is a designated terrorist organization in the United States and Britain but it has not been banned by the Liberal Cabinet, although the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) calls it a "militant Marxist Islamic movement" dedicated to violence.

 From Iraq, MEK units conducted scores of cross-border raids, assassinations and bombings in Iran. CSIS has estimated the group has 13 large offices and 170 smaller ones worldwide, including one in Canada.

"The MEK has also evolved into a form of cult, strongly devoted to its chief, [Massoud] Rajavi," says a CSIS report, adding, "The MEK’s 29-year record of behaviour does not substantiate its capability or intention to be democratic."

The MEK presence in Canada came to public attention on April 5, 1992, when about 40 people armed with sticks, crowbars and mallets attacked the Iranian embassy in Ottawa hours after Iranian bombers struck the MEK’s Iraq base.

In 1993, Robab Farahi-Mahdavieh, whom CSIS called a "leading female member of the MEK" and the alleged mastermind of the Ottawa embassy raid, was deported for reasons of national security.

Another MEK leader, Mahnaz Samadi, was arrested in Ottawa in 1999. A CSIS report said she "was responsible for directing some MEK operations in Iraq" and that she was sent to Canada "to act in an organizational capacity."

Shortly after French counterterrorism authorities arrested Maryam Rajavi, the wife of the MEK leader and herself a prominent figure in the movement, Neda Hassani, 25, of Ottawa set herself on fire in protest and died.

U.S. forces who took control of Camp Ashraf last year in a truce agreement seized 300 tanks, 250 armoured personnel carriers, 250 artillery pieces and 10,000 small arms from MEK fighters.

Stewart Bell

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

U.S. Congress, Timothy McVeigh and Mojahedin-e Khalq

Opinion: U.S. Congress, Timothy McVeigh and Mojahedin-e Khalq

As the date of Timothy McVeigh’s execution approaches, and in light of the Secretary of State’s recent testimony on counterterrorism before the Senate, I am drawn to note the lack of unity in Congress in recognizing and dealing with this dilemma. Timothy McVeigh is being executed because of his role in the murderous and deadly attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Paradoxically, and through a twisted sense of rights and logic, the Mojahedin-e Khalq/National Council of Resistance (MEK/NCR) and their supporters claim similar cause to detonate bombs and execute mortar attacks and other violence against Iranian government and civil structures frequently resulting in death and injury to civilians and bystanders. Although the MEK/NCR has long been rightly identified and designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, and in spite of the fact that the FBI has made numerous arrests and broken up immigration fraud and bogus charity front rings operating in support and on behalf of the MEK/NCR, nevertheless this has not prevented a handful of members of Congress from endorsing the MEK/NCR and circulating letters of support amongst their colleagues.

One might reasonably be astonished that members of the U.S. Congress could even think to support a terrorist organization, particularly one with American blood on its hands, but it is a sad fact that such letters have been sponsored over the years by Robert Torricelli, Gary Ackerman and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, amongst others. A longer list of congressmembers have appeared at MEK/NCR press conferences and their photographs and kind words have graced the pages of the MEK newspaper, Mojahed, alongside their machine gun logo, no less. But it does not stop there. Gary Ackerman and Ros-Lehtinen have publicly claimed over 200 House members’ signatures on their letters, thus abusing the good name of our representatives and the sanctity of the U.S. Congress to provide aid and comfort to violent terrorists. While this has pleased the MEK/NCR and confounded our efforts to gain international cooperation on terrorism and to convince certain countries such as Iran of our sincerity, Ackerman and Ros-Lehtinen steadfastly refuse to divulge the names of the alleged cosigners. When prodded with the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act, for example, Jonathan Berger of Ackerman’s office cynically replied to the author that the FOIA "does not apply to Congress".

We have a serious problem in this country when a few members of Congress can claim in the name of a majority of their colleagues endorsement of a violent foreign terrorist organization and then deny basic information on such claims to the very citizens that they have been elected to represent.

It is particularly disturbing because the MEK/NCR have become an important point of contention between Iran and the U.S. The State Department has regularly expressed its concerns about terrorism and its desire to discuss this subject with the Iranian government but such actions by members of the U.S. Congress have hampered efforts to address terrorism as a global problem of concern to all. How can we expect the Iranian government to take us seriously when our own representatives encourage terrorist violence on their soil?

In May of 1998, for example, Ros-Lehtinen and Ackerman claimed to have 220 House members’ signatures on a letter supportive of the MEK. Days later, emboldened by this support, the group detonated a series of bombs in Tehran killing civilians. These and similar acts have brought condemnation from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

And while MEK/NCR members are being portrayed as some kind of "freedom fighters" by their friends in Congress, developments in the U.S. indicate that they will do and say anything to further their cause in contravention of U.S. laws. In 1992, MEK members stormed the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York and took hostages at knife point. In 1999, the FBI arrested dozens in an immigration fraud ring linked to the smuggling of MEK members into the U.S. Just this year the FBI made arrests in the case of a false charity allegedly collecting donations for refugees and then funneling the money to the organization to purchase weapons. Alarmingly, the "charity" had been granted non-profit status in the State of California and had been given license to solicit door-to-door in some communities.

McVeigh’s judgement comes because we Americans find murder and violence an abhorrent and intolerable form of political expression. Terrorism is fundamentally at odds with democracy and human rights. There are no good terrorists. Ackerman and Ros-Lehtinen owe the American people an explanation for their activities. At the very least, our elected officials have a responsibility to discuss these matters publicly and not through "secret" letters for the benefit of terrorists.

——————————————————————————–

About the author: I am a research engineer (B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering) and also a personal activist that believes that open civic dialog and trust in one’s representatives are fundamental to the enjoyment of the full fruits of democracy. My interest in the MEK was sparked by a recognition that important basic information about Iran and Iranians was being conveyed by an extremist few and that widespread mainstream Iranian-American participation in U.S. politics was sorely lacking. I also believe that this distorted perspective has hindered U.S. efforts at formulating effective policy in resolving the differences between our nations. Bradley J. Hernlem, Ph.D 

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

A shortsighted alliance with terrorists

The announcement of the cease-fire negotiated between the United States and the Iraqi-based Peoples Mujahideen guerillas is a shocking development that is counter to the US strategy in both the Iraq and the war on terror. Moreover, it demonstrates the myopic and contradictory vision that continues to guide US policy in the region. The Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MKO), also known as the National Council of Resistance and the Peoples Movement of Iran, is an internationally recognized terrorist group that has been on the State Departments Foreign Terrorist Organization list since 1992. Not only the MKO has been responsible for terrorist activities resulting in the death of Americans, but its members also participated in the 1979 US Embassy seizure and subsequent two-year hostage crisis. It opposed the release of the hostages in 1981. More damning is its 18-year alliance with Saddam Hussein, who provided it with sanctuary and financial support in its efforts to oust the theocratic Islamic government in neighboring Iran. The MKO was a loyal supporter of its Iraqi benefactor, fighting to contain Iranian advances during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and to repress the Kurdish and Shiite uprisings after the 1991 Gulf War. The Pentagon assumes that an alliance with the MKO will facilitate US efforts to secure and stabilize Iraq in the near term. But the shortsightedness of such a policy is twofold: First, it delegitimizes America’s stabilizing role in Iraq because the Iraqi people will link a US-MKO alliance to the MKOs complicity in Saddam Husseins terror campaigns. Iraqis regard the MKO as Saddam Husseins mercenaries. Second, allowing the group to retain its weapons and use them to fight other armed groups in Iraq, as per the agreement, will cause further domestic instability in Iraq by creating a situation susceptible to civil war. Introducing warlordism to Iraq does not benefit the US. Perhaps the Bush administration thought such a cease-fire with the MKO, whose base in northeastern Iraq the Americans attacked early in the war, would bolster US interests in the reconstruction of Iraq and the region. An alliance with the MKO could be used as leverage against the Iranian Shiite clerics who are allegedly trying to exert their influence over Iraqs Shiites, who are 60 percent of the population. But this will only inflame the already tense relationship between Iran and the United States, including hindering any engagement with Tehran on its disputed weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration refuses to side with different factions within the Iranian government. Rather, it argues that US support should be given to the people of Iran. Cutting a deal with the MKO will send the wrong signal to the Iranian people and undermine the administrations efforts to capitalize on their pro-American sentiments.

The Iranian street can quickly turn against America unless this apparent contradiction in the war on terror is corrected. Most notably, the agreement with the MKO contradicts US policy implemented after Sept. 11, 2001. How is it possible to fight a war on terror when the United States has made an accommodation with a terrorist organization considered in Washington as dangerous as Al-Qaeda? By working with the MKO, the Pentagon has legitimized its terror tactics and increased the likelihood that such associations can be made with other terrorist organizations.

Ultimately, engaging the MKO has discredited the Bush Doctrine and the administrations future initiatives to curtail terrorism.

Sanam Vakil

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Iranian opposition challenges to drop terror label

Iranian opposition challenges Bush to keep his word,drop terror label

Hundreds of Iranian exiles linked to an opposition group Washington considers terrorist gathered Thursday to demand US President George W. Bush support them in their efforts to unseat the Islamic regime in Tehran.

The National Convention for a Democratic Secular Republic in Iran gathered Iranian-Americans to push for official US support for their efforts.

Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi, addressing the convention in a video link from France, called on the United States and the European Union to end its appeasement of the Tehran regime and recognize her National Council of Resistance of Iran as an Iranian government-in-exile.

"Just as the time has come to abandon the appeasement of tyrants, so the time has come to remove the ominous legacy of that policy, namely the terror label against the Iranian resistance," Rajavi said, according to a printed translation of her remarks in Farsi.

Rajavi, president of the opposition group, cannot enter the United States because the council and its armed wing, the People’s Mujahedeen, are considered terrorist organizations by the US government and the European Union.

Its detractors call the organization a Marxist cult, but the group insists it is committed to democracy and is merely fighting oppression under the Islamic regime in Tehran.

The group has considerable support among US lawmakers, think-tank experts and lobbyists, who claim the terrorism designation was meant to appease Tehran and want Bush to order it lifted.

Bush has denounced the regime in Tehran, saying it supports terrorism and is trying to develop a nuclear bomb, and has urged Iranians to work against the ruling clergy. In February, during his State of the Union address to Congress, Bush said: "To the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you."

Tancredo and other lawmakers however want the United States to go further. They have introduced legislation to provide financial and political assistance to Iranian opposition groups that oppose terrorism and support democracy.

The People’s Mujahedeen, whose headquarters are in Auvers-sur-Oise outside Paris, was implicated in attacks on US military officers in Iran in the 1970s, and supported the 1979 Islamic revolution and the subsequent takeover of the US embassy by Iranian militants.

But the movement was suppressed in the years that followed, and the group set up base in Iraq in 1986 and carried out regular cross-border raids into Iran, with which Iraq fought a bloody war between 1980 and 1988.

The group also participated in Saddam Hussein’s crackdown on an uprising by Shiites and Kurds in 1991.

Some 3,800 of the group’s fighters were disarmed and interned by US forces in 2003 at a camp in Iraq. They have been given protected status under the Geneva Conventions, and US officials have interviewed them to determine if they had been involved in terrorist incidents.  

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Ashcroft’s Baghdad Connection

Why the attorney general and others in Washington have backed a terror group with ties to Iraq

When the White House released its Sept. 12 "white paper" detailing Saddam Hussein’s "support for international terrorism," it caused more than a little discomfort in some quarters of Washington.

The 27-page document–entitled "A Decade of Deception and Defiance"–made no mention of any Iraqi ties to Osama bin Laden. But it did highlight Saddam’s backing of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), an obscure Iranian dissident group that has gathered surprising support among members of Congress in past years. One of those supporters, the documents show, is a top commander in President Bush’s war on terrorism: Attorney General John Ashcroft, who became involved with the MKO while a Republican senator from Missouri. 

The case of Ashcroft and the MKO shows just how murky fighting terrorism can sometimes get. State Department officials first designated the MKO a "foreign terrorist organization" in 1997, accusing the Baghdad-based group of a long series of bombings, guerilla cross-border raids and targeted assassinations of Iranian leaders. Officials say the MKO–which originally fought to overthrow the Shah of Iran–was linked to the murder of several U.S. military officers and civilians in Iran in the 1970s. "They have an extremely bloody history," says one U.S. counterterrorism official.

But the MKO, which commands an army of 30,000 from bases inside Iraq, has tried to soften its image in recent years–in part with strong backing from politically active Iranian-Americans in the United States. The MKO operates in Washington out of a small office in the National Press Building under the name the National Council of Resistance of Iran. According to the State Department, the National Council of Resistance is a "front" for the MKO; in 1999, the National Council itself was placed on the State Department terrorist list. But National Council officials adamantly deny their group has earned the terror label and have aggressively portrayed itself to Washington lawmakers as a "democratic" alternative to Iranian regime."You’re talking about a really popular movement," says Alireza Jafarzadeh, the National Council’s chief Washington spokesman, who insists that the MKO "targets only military targets."

Only two years ago, these arguments won sympathy from Ashcroft–and more than 200 other members of Congress. When the National Council of Resistance staged a September 2000 rally outside the United Nations to protest a speech by Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, Missouri’s two Republican senators–Ashcroft and Chris Bond–issued a joint statement of solidarity that was read aloud to a cheering crowd. A delegation of about 500 Iranians from Missouri attended the event–and a picture of a smiling Ashcroft was later included in a color briefing book used by MKO officials to promote their cause on Capitol Hill. Ashcroft was hardly alone. Among those who actually appeared at the rally and spoke on the group’s behalf was one of its leading congressional supporters: Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Torricelli.

That same year, Senator Ashcroft wrote a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno protesting the detention of an Iranian woman, Mahnaz Samadi, who was a leading spokeswoman for the National Council of Resistance. The case quickly became a cause celebre for the MKO and its supporters in the United States.

U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agents had arrested Samadi at the Canadian border, charging her with failing to disclose her past "terrorist" ties as an MKO "military commander"–including spending seven months in a MKO military-training camp inside Iraq–when she sought political asylum in the United States several years earlier, according to court documents obtained by NEWSWEEK.

Senator Ashcroft saw the case differently. In his May 10, 2000, letter to Reno, the Missouri lawmaker expressed "concern" about the detention, calling Samadi a "highly regarded human-rights activist" and a "powerful voice for democracy." (As part of a later settlement with the INS, Samadi admitted her membership in MKO but denied that she personally participated in any "terrorist activity." While her grant of political asylum was revoked, the INS dropped its deportation proceedings and she was permitted to remain in the United States.)

Alireza Jafarzadeh, the National Council’s top Washington lobbyist, said he had "several" meetings with Ashcroft aides about the matter and that he "certainly" viewed the Missouri senator as a supporter of his group. But backers of the MKO acknowledge the real lobbying was done by Iranian-Americans in Missouri who wrote letters and made repeated phone calls on Samadi’s behalf. How much Ashcroft got personally involved isn’t clear. A Justice Department spokeswoman told NEWSWEEK that Ashcroft’s letter to Reno was the result of a "straightforward, constituent-type inquiry," adding that the current attorney general would never "knowingly" back any terrorist group. When he signed the joint statement with Bond that was read at the National Council rally at the United Nations, Ashcroft did not "intend to endorse any organization," the spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, said. "He was supporting democracy and freedom in Iran," she said. Comstock said Ashcroft currently has "no problem" prosecuting all U.S.-based terror groups, including the MKO.

Ashcroft isn’t the only one now distancing himself from the MKO. The Senate’s most aggressive promotor of the MKO for years has been Bob Torricelli, who in recent years has circulated numerous letters among his colleagues–including one as recently as last year–describing the MKO as a "legitimate" alternative to the regime in Iran and urging that the group be taken off the State Department terrorist list. Torricelli told NEWSWEEK he saw his support for the group as a way of putting pressure on the Iranian regime. "They [the MKO] were the only game in town," he said. But Torricelli also said last week said he would no longer push the group’s cause after getting hammered over the issue by his GOP opponent, Doug Forrester, who accused Torricelli of receiving more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from Iranian-Americans who supported the group. (Torricelli aides say the amount is exaggerated and that others, including some leading Republicans, have also received contributions from some of the same Iranian-Americans.) As a result of the September 11 attacks and new concerns about any allegations of terrorism, Bond also has put his backing for the group "in abeyance," an aide said.

Much of the new skittishness among MKO’s congressional backers also stems from the decision by the Bush White House to emphasize the connections between MKO and Saddam. It isn’t the first time this was done. Former Clinton administration official Martin Indyk, who served as assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs in 1997, told NEWSWEEK that one of the reasons the group was put on the terrorism list in the first place was part of a "two-pronged" strategy that included ratcheting up pressure on Saddam. Like the Bush White House, the Clinton administration was eager to highlight Iraqi ties to terrorism and had collected extensive evidence of Saddam providing logistical support to the MKO in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War. (The MKO’s headquarters are located on a heavily guarded street in central Baghdad.) But the United States could find no other hard evidence linking Saddam to terror groups, Indyk said. "That was about all we had on [Saddam] when it came to terrorism," Indyk told NEWSWEEK.

National-security adviser Condoleezza Rice said in an interview Wednesday on PBS’s "The NewsHour" that the United States had new evidence from "high-ranking detainees" that Iraq has provided "some training to Al Qaeda in chemical-weapons development." But a top U.S. law-enforcement official recently cast some doubt about the strength of the evidence connecting Saddam and Al Qaeda, telling NEWSWEEK there is far more substantial evidence that Iran was harboring top Al Qaeda leaders.)

The other "prong" in the Clinton strategy that led to the inclusion of the MKO on the terrorist list was White House interest in opening up a dialogue with the Iranian government. At the time, President Khatami had recently been elected and was seen as a moderate. Top administration officials saw cracking down on the MKO–which the Iranians had made clear they saw as a menace–as one way to do so. Still, Indyk said the basic decision to label the MKO as terrorists could be justified anyway. "Yes, they’re bad guys," he told NEWSWEEK. "But no–they’re not targeting us."

Indyk’s comments lend partial support to one of the main contentions of MKO and its congressional supporters: that geopolitical strategy–a tilt toward Iran–was an important factor in the State Department decision to accuse MKO of terrorism. "They wanted to appease the Iranian regime," said Jafarzadeh, the National Council of Resistance lobbyist.

Still, the Justice Department appears only to be stepping up investigations into MKO members. Early last year, the FBI broke up a ring of Iranians who were raising money at the Los Angeles airport under the guise of helping suffering children when, according to a court complaint, they were routing the funds to the MKO. (A federal judge recently tossed the case out of court, but the Justice Department is appealing.) Then, last December, FBI agents showed up at the home of Jafarzadeh. Armed with a search warrant, the agents hauled away boxes of documents, including files on the group’s dealings with members of Congress. One in particular must have gotten the agents’ attention. It was labeled ASHCROFT.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

By Michael Isikoff 

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