Mojahedin. WS

Mojahedin Khalq , a Tool for Political Games

MKO has no explanation for explicitly glorifying machine-gunning American citizens

The undeniable fact in the removal of Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/PMOI/NCR from the State Department’s list of FTOs is that the decision is entirely a political move and has nothing to do neither with the worldwide coalition against terrorism nor with the reasons by which the group was put on the list. In its last issued statement on July 31, 2012, just two months prior to delisting MKO, the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Counter-terrorism concerning to MKO’s activities states:

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

These have been the recognized reasons of perpetrating terrorist deeds just against the US interests and citizens that justified the maintaining of MKO on the list for 15 years, regardless of many more thousands of terrorist atrocities against Iranian people and then against Iraqi people when taking safe haven there. If we accept, and that is the fact, that these above mentioned anti-American terrorist operations have been considered the actual involvement in terrorist activities against the US, the fact is reaffirmed in The Secretary of State’s media note details when announcing the MKO’s delisting:

With today’s actions, the Department does not overlook or forget the MEK’s past acts of terrorism, including its involvement in the killing of U.S. citizens in Iran in the 1970s and an attack on U.S. soil in 1992.

However, neither has MKO ever renounced its anti-American stances nor has apologized the US government and the families of the assassinated. Instead, MKO devoted considerable efforts to deny what it named the accusations of “assassinating six American citizens in the 1970s” and to put the blame and responsibility on “a group (that) took advantage of the situation and expropriated the Mojahedin name” (Democracy Betrayed, 1995).

But what the group publicized in its papers published in Farsi was altogether different and approves the veracity of American’s claims and facts stated in the published reports and findings. In Mojahed No. 18 dated 8 January 1980, under an article entitled “Under the reign of repression and dictatorship, the fire of whose machine-guns targeted the American hirelings and attache?” we read:

The criminal Americans themselves have no doubt about the organization’s anti-imperialist stances because from the very beginning years of the organization’s armed operations (from 1970 onward), they have experienced the fire of Mojahedin Khalq machine-guns shot through the hearts of their hirelings and attaches. … From the very beginning of the occupation of America’s spy-den, the organization willingly mobilized all its forces to protect the move.

Then, has MKO any justifiable explanation for what it has explicitly stated and glorifying about machine-gunning American citizens and supporting the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran? Unless it totally denies its gazette and the contents and makes another effort to attribute all to a different group! Although it is removed from the terror list and allowed some privileges to be utilized as another possible bullying force in a political game, as it is a truth that MKO is a fierce militant and dictatorial group maintaining high terrorist potentialities, MKO is never trusted with anything on the US soil as the reports and findings are still in effect.

Mojahedin.ws, November 15, 2012
http://www.mojahedin.ws/en/?p=16795

November 18, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO’s position in the policies against Iran

As Noam Chomsky has stressed, “the escalation to attack undefended civilian targets is just a ‎classic illustration of terrorism” and “the United States happens to be the only state in the world ‎that has been condemned by the World Court for international terrorism”.‎

Supporting a resistance, legal or illegal, against any outside threat or invasion is one thing, but ‎backing and organizing a terrorist army for imperious purposes and political interests is a ‎different thing. Why has the US government, which denounces other governments’ involvement ‎with terrorism, been supporting MKO (Mojahedin Khalq Organization) and removed it from its ‎list of the designated FTO? How the US chooses to use the group’s violent and terroristic ‎capacity, especially when it still has a historical falling out with Washington and has won ‎nobody’s trust because America and capitalism have historically been the organization’s primary ‎enemies?‎

Possibly, it’s because MKO is regarded an enemy of the current Iranian regime and can be ‎utilized in the most horrific and possible way of foreign intervention, that is, to wage wars ‎against those who oppose the US. Many believe that the US is using the MKO to disrupt Iran’s ‎nuclear program and it is quite possible, however, that the MKO is also being used to set the ‎stage for, or even to effect, the regime change. Although at the first look it sounds so simplistic, ‎but it is an undeniable fact that the US cannot overlook MKO as a possible political lever of ‎pressure against Iranian regime whatever the consequences might be.‎

What the US policy makers have been inattentive to in their decision makings against the Iranian ‎regime is the people themselves. Any wrong step further deepens the already wide gap between ‎the two countries, as the imposed sanctions has so far proved ineffective to change a national ‎perspective on the opponents and oppositions. In relation to MKO, its delisting doesn’t help the ‎US to recreate a different image of the group within Iran; in contrast, the move has negative ‎ramifications since MKO is long despised inside Iran. Paul Pillar, a former top CIA analyst who ‎served as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia asserts that: ‎‎“Delisting will be seen not only by the Iranian regime, but also by most Iranian citizens, as a ‎hostile act by the United States. The MEK has almost no popular support within Iran, where it is ‎despised as a group of traitors, especially given its history of joining forces with Saddam Hussein ‎during the Iran-Iraq War.”‎

Regardless of the unwritten agreements about the West’s manipulation of the group’s ‎potentialities, MKO leaders insist to take its delisting to be a victory over the US in a legal and ‎universal battle that proves rightness and veracity of its historical, organizational, ideological and ‎political positions. The claim implicitly suggests that the group desists to be used by the US in ‎any plan against Iran. However, neither the US covert support for MKO since at least ‎‏2008‏‎ nor ‎the group’s renunciation of its role as a possible proxy have authenticated a behind the curtain ‎plot in any form against Iranian regime.‎

The time is not still ripe for either to speak up of what they have up their sleeves and there is no ‎evidence of reckoning on MKO in any options against Iran. But one thing is for certain at the ‎moment; MKO fiercely embraces, circulates and glorifies the terrorist deeds and operations of ‎Syrian insurgents who are disturbing the country to end Assad’s rule. If the US plans to draw a ‎pattern seen repeated in Libya and most recently in Syria, that is to say, arm, train and support ‎terrorist insurgents in pursuit of regime change, that is a second fatal mistake. It is so naïve to ‎think that a group of armed terrorists deployed against Iran can possibly change a nation’s ‎perspective even if they are wrangling over internal problems.‎

By N. Morgan

November 7, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Apparent Hypocrisy in War on Terror

The sponsor of terrorists by US shows hypocrisy in the war on terror has reached its heights

The diplomatic crisis created between Iran and the United States following the collapse of Pahlavi’s regime in Iran intensified even further after the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran by a number of radical Iranian students in opposition to the US’s hostile policies, and the presence of the ousted Pahlavi’s monarch there seemingly allowed for cancer treatment. The incident was the hottest focus of the global media for 444 days, from 4 November 1979 to 20 January 1981. The incident, however, granted many opportunists to fish in troubled waters and intensify the crisis.

As many truly say and the evidences verify, Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/PMOI/NCR played no key role in the occupation of the US embassy in Tehran, but it is true to say that the group played a role to aggravate the situation to turn it into a real crisis. At the time, the organization showed no open antagonism against the newly established regime and tried to highlight a coalition with it to inoculate an extreme anti-imperialism and anti-American vision in the Islamic state and among the public. The US State Department’s Report of 1994 explicitly discloses facts on the group’s role in the crisis and strong opposition to the release of the hostages; “As part of that struggle, they assassinated at least six American citizens, supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, and opposed the release of American hostages”.

The embassy takeover ended diplomatic relations between Washington and Tehran, a rift that persists to this day. But America’s explicit deal and affiliation with the ones who fanned the hostility and aggravated the situation has offered a new sacrifice to an already born double standard which is referred to as the cancer at the heart of Western foreign policy. Although hypocrisy in the age of the war on terror and confronting terrorism fails to be a new subject to touch on, but it seems that it has reached its heights and most have lost their trust in those who chant it. There are more than enough written and spoken proofs to prove, the latest of which is delisting of MKO from the State Department’s FTO. As Edward Herman further explains:

The most recent display of the terrorism double standard is the State Department’s September 2012 removal of the Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), from its list of designated terrorist organizations. The MEK worked earlier on behalf of Saddam Hussein and sometimes killed Americans, and reportedly has collaborated with the Israelis in assassinating Iranian scientists, but with the escalated U.S.-Israel low-level warfare against Iran, MEK can be moved into a new, more positive “freedom fighter” category. This has other amusing features. For one thing, MEK has very large amounts of money that it has spent in organizing protests and lobbying in Europe and the United States, the funding suspected to come from the freedom-loving Saudis and other governments hostile to Iran. Even while on the terrorist list, MEK was able to organize, propagandize and lobby in the United States and elsewhere in the West. It has also paid large sums to U.S. notables like Howard Dean, Tom Ridge, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and Ed Rendell to write and speak on their behalf. No prosecutions are in prospect for “material aid” to terrorists in this case.

The latest evidence is a grisly video showing killing of Syrian soldiers in an execution-style at a checkpoint by “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) terrorists. The ruthless deed is believed to be only the tip of the iceberg of the killings and other similar slaughters by these foreign backed terrorists, whom MKO enthusiastically acclaim and support and who the US plans to make an example for MKO to follow. Let’s now imagine what the reaction of the supporters of these terrorists would have been if the killers had been Syrian forces. Although hard to believe but it is the truth that today the nightmare of the institutionalized double standard and hypocrisy hunts the communities far beyond the terrorists themselves.

November 6, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

The New Order in Renunciation of Terrorism

No statement of renunciation is needed as only definition of terms has changed

The terrorist organizations that for national causes decide to forswear violent campaign and practice of terrorism may be granted the opportunity to accomplish their political demands through peaceful avenues. The groups and organizations that claim to have renounced armed campaign are mostly judged by their actions rather than the words. There are groups that indeed mean what they say and declare it publicly for the world to see and judge. On the contrary, there exist groups that their non-proclaimed but quoted claims of renouncing terrorism corroborate the intention of evading a just judgment rather than adhering to non-violent practices to fulfill the rightful objectives.

The removal of Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/PMOI from the State Department’s FTO has been seen as the result of a costly campaign by members of Congress, Washington lobby groups and influential former officials to bury the MKO’s bloody history of bombings and assassinations that not only killed American military personnel and businessmen but also Iranian personalities and thousands of civilians. It was also assumed a hard campaign to portray it as a loyal US ally against the Islamic government in Tehran. In fact, there does exist a credibility gap between the taken decision and the existing fact about the nature of MKO; it is impossible to consider a heavily armed and militant group transformed into a pro-democratic campaigner overnight with no officially made statement.

Consider the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) for instance. Through an officially issued statement, UVF declared that “as of 12 midnight, Thursday 3 May 2007, the Ulster Volunteer Force and Red Hand Commando will assume a non-military, civilianized, role”. Formed as an armed group in Northern Ireland, it declared war on the IRA and made note of the fact that they were “heavily armed Protestants dedicated to this cause”. In the course of its forty-year long armed activities, UVF had been reportedly responsible for the killing of some 550 people. Whatever the cause, it had created a nightmare of terrorism threat that led to its proscription as a terrorist group. Although the group had already declared a 13-year long ceasefire, it was still known responsible for a variety of scattered murders and crimes.

Transformation from a terrorist to a civilian organization includes measures as stated in the group’s issued statement: “All recruitment has ceased; military training has ceased; targeting has ceased and all intelligence rendered obsolete; all active service units have been de-activated; all ordinance has been put beyond reach and the IICD instructed accordingly”. The statement seems to be a sensible recognition of a new political reality that the world is no more a place for armed or violent actions, rather any pro-democratic move is welcomed if the repentant armed groups really mean it.

The sole move to recognize MKO a pro-democratic group that has never renounced terrorism is a decision made by the US for political considerations. MKO is a terrorist group with a forty-year long history of violence and the most vicious terrorist activities against Iranian people. There is no exact number of the victims of its atrocities but it is believed to reach thousands. Then, when reconsidering MKO’s terrorist status, if these terrors and atrocities have been interpreted as democratic deeds in a process of civil campaigns, MKO needs no issued statement of renunciation as nothing has changed but definitions of terms. Thus, according to a new definition of democracy, any group has the right to shed people’s blood for the cause of a self-defined democracy and accredited interests. But who are to assume the responsibility for the shed bloods remain an unanswered question in such a new political order.

October 29, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

When Will MKO Swing into Action?

Even after being removed from the blacklist MKO has not actually got any job done

In one of the famous fables of the storyteller, Aesop, it goes: “A very deep and frightening sound began emanating from Mount Ida (the birthplace of Zeus). The earth commenced to tremble and shake — and huge boulders flew off the mountain top into the sky.

It seemed as if the mountain was about to give birth.”

“The population was terrified and ran for shelter — trembling in fear.”

“The sky blackened and the thunderous sound from the sacred mountain became even worse. Finally, an earthquake more violent than any ever-before it, set everything in motion — and in one terrifying moment, the mountain’s peak split wide open!”

“The people all got down on their knees and began to pray. Some fainted from fear. Others couldn’t take their eyes off the mountain — wondering how this terror would end.”

“Suddenly the roaring, the shaking, and the shocks just stopped. The whole Aegean region went silent.”

“Then, slowly, and with hardly a whisper of sound… out of the huge cleft in the mountain peak there slowly emerged… a tiny little mouse.”

A flashback to the decade-long campaign by Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/PMOI to be removed from the global terrorist lists, and particularly after the controversial POAC’s judgment to be removed from the EU blacklist, had convinced many misinformed that the world was neglecting and depriving itself of the great dormant potentiality in a pro-democratic organization! In fact, the political life of MKO especially after Massoud Rajavi’s retreat to hideout to let his phoenix of democracy, Maryam Rajavi, to hold sway a democratic tactic after a long frantic phase of terrorism, heavily depended on propaganda ploys. And it was following a rather long propaganda doldrums that the UK court ruling granted the organization‘s propaganda machine a recovering opportunity.

It started all with celebrating the court ruling along with Maryam Rajavi who in turn began extravagant performances of welcoming the decision and sending messages of congratulations. The scenario continued with repetitive, lengthy TV shows and analysis programs with a variety of analysts who suddenly turned to be experts in law and judiciary affairs. Practically, nothing great came out of the big drum they were beating.

And the greatest and final victory was achieved only a few weeks ago when the Department of Stale removed MKO from the global FTO. Then, what? A look at the group’s own TV and websites reveals nothing but jubilant drumming of being removed, celebrations and congratulations and welcoming of delisting by this and that dignitary and party. Just like many similar politicians and parties, regardless of their political weight and influence to cause any change, who promise big things and who bellow and roar but who don’t actually get the job done. Out of the all these brouhahas, lobbying activities and million dollar expenses many expected to see a single or tiny portion of countless promises for restoration of democracy and human rights, as the group claimed, fulfilled. The more we have waited the less we have seen a pup mouse emerging, let alone a tiny little mouse!

By N. Morgan

October 15, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MKO, A Potential Global Threat

The US has accepted the responsibility of a terrorist threat unleashed with intact fangs
A venomoid is a venomous snake made harmless, but extracting its venom or exposed to cold temperature means a dangerous but temporarily harmless and inactive snake. The serious difference between the two is a matter of life and death for those in touch. So, there is the very same serious difference when a dangerous terrorist cult surrenders its arms and publically renounces terrorism, as well as making alterations in its infrastructural organizational principles, and the one that is forcibly disposed of weapons to curb its threatening terrorist and militarist potentiality. The State Department’s decision to delist the designated MKO is a clear indication of the two latter illustrations.

A more perfect illustration is provided in a tale in Persian literature, Rumi’s ‘The Snake-Catcher’s Tale’. A snake-catcher went into the mountains in winter and found a sluggish, inactive snake. He brought it back to the city claiming to have killed a dragon! And the gathered crowed were amazed and fascinated by the big task! But the hot sun woke the terrible life and dormant bestial potentiality in it; it tore easily and hungrily loose, spreading panic and killing many instantly including the snake-catcher himself.

The State Department delisted MKO credited with a decade long inactivity in terrorism and also for peacefully leaving its paramilitary base, Camp Ashraf. But how can an innately violent and terrorist group, gone into a state of inactivity for many reasons, claim it has forsworn terrorism without a single alteration in its old principles it stresses to maintain? As Bijan Niyabati, a leftist ideologue of the group, has emphatically and repeatedly stated, “Any criticism of MKO’s strategy of widespread armed struggle adopted in military phase that may deny necessity of armed resistance is deemed absolutely illegitimate”.

Notably, a series of the organization’s early pamphlets, designed to provide the basis for its general aspirations and systematic world-outlook, explicitly theorize and advocate the violent strategy of armed struggle. In fact, the cornerstone of its struggle when emerged as an opposition was partly the Machiavellian doctrine of the ‘end justifying the means’. A specified catalogue of these early booklets and pamphlets that were drafted by a selected ideological team to manifest the organizational ideology and policy are still strongly valued as practicable. The specific series are entitled Takamol (Evolution), Shenakht (Epistemology), Cheguneh Quran biamuzim (How to study the Koran), Rah-e anbiya rah-e bashar (The way of the prophets: the way of humanity) and finally a book entitled An account of the formation and short history of Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization from 1965 to 1975.

Its ideology conforming more closely to the modern phenomenon of terrorism as a tool of a political movement, MKO believes it is also a phenomenon itself among all other opposition groups. Naturally, it opposes any criticism and change of strategy and resists urges of modifications in general ideology as well as refusing to grasp the necessity of laws ruling over the phenomenon. As stated in its published ‘An account of the formation and short history of Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization’, “To make any change in any phenomenon, one has to develop a comprehensive recognition of it. In respect to society and social movement and struggle, the recognition is of great significance because of their complexity. Thus, any change within a phenomenon, society and social movement requires recognition of the laws controlling them”.

Relatively, if any change is to happen within MKO concerning disavowal of terrorism, the ideological principles that legitimize aggressive conduct has to be removed from its methodology of struggle, otherwise, it is hard to believe that it will be unwavering in its renunciation of terrorism. Armed strategy is the effect of the group’s principal ideological cause and source and its renunciation is totally out of question if the cause remains intact.

The change in principles is a move of such great significance that even MKO itself cannot ensure to what degree it is feasible and practical. Not in a single occasion has the organization tried to convince neither the insiders nor the outsiders that it intends to actualize the will to stop military and violent activities. Now, how the State Department has come to warrant MKO’s terrorist inactivity for a certain period remains a mystery, but at least it has actually accepted the responsibility of a terrorist threat unleashed with intact fangs but extracted venom!

October 9, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

48 Years After Formation of MKO

MKO lacks the least political support among the Iranian people and opposition

This September, Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCR, NLA) commemorates 48th anniversary of its formation. Now on the list of designated terrorist organizations, there is no denying that it shares many characteristics and similar terrorist and violent tactics employed by any of the same groups and entities on the list. However, hardly any of other terrorist groups can be identified even close to it in utilizing tactics in pursuit of overall strategies that have oftentimes changed in degree and frequency; a make-believe shift from an absolute violent to a presumably pro-democracy group, an opportunistic and ambivalent shift from the ultra-left to ultra-right, and turning into an enthusiastic pro-imperialist after being initially and inherently recognized an ardent anti-imperialist.

As an opposition lasting for nearly half a century in Iranian temporary history, MKO is known to have had the most destructive impact on other campaigning freedom-seeking and ideological groups. In contrast to genuine sincerity and righteous causes of the early founders of the organization, as many believe, the subsequent unsavory assumption of power as the leader by Massoud Rajavi actually led the organization to a different path of deviation that so far has challenged it. It does not mean that the early founders like Muhammad Hanifnejad were totally free from mistakes and errors in decision makings that were somehow a natural impact of other active political, ideological and mainly Marxist groups’ activities, but Rajavi’s persistence to walk on a more tortuous path of mistakes led many to doubt the honesty and veracity of the early founders in their claimed campaign.

Benefiting a wide range of public support for its ideological and religious believes MKO was holding at the beginning, it did not take long, only a decade later, for the group to be totally divested of majority of its publically reputed figures who were superseded by pro-leftists. In fact, MKO has failed to remain an un-diverted group and has often been realigning itself with leftist ideologies and has undergone a thorough change both in its membership make up and political interaction with the world outside. Now nearly after five decades of its formation, MKO is facing strong opposition from a variety of other opposition groups that are drawing firm lines of demarcation between genuine and sham ideological, political and strategic policies practiced by MKO and themselves. Here are some examples of these oppositions’ perception of MKO.

– A front of opposition believes that the formation of MKO was engineered by under-the-curtain hands to carry through imperialist, freemason and capitalist ends and to confront genuine Islamic movements. Based on questionable, historical analyses and evidences, this front argues that the formation of MKO followed a tactic of forming a trend at the expense of Islamic movements but at the service of imperialism interests.

– There are others who are of the opinion that MKO was principally a devoted Islamic group but the strong impact of Marxist movements on Iranian campaigning intelligentsia at the time impelled the leaders to nest fallacies in reasoning to make impetuous decisions. These seriously made miscalculations are known to be the root of the consequent organizational and eclectic deviations lasted so far.

– Another group believes that surviving intellectuals of the early Mojahedin like Taqi Shahram and Bahram Aram, who had concealed their Marxist inclination as they joined the organization, were the subset to lead the organization to a full derailment. They are said to have established close collaboration with SAVAK, Pahlavi’s Intelligence Agency, and CIA to deflect the organization from its main path by open declaration of conversion to Marxism when the top leaders were arrested and executed.

– A fourth group observes that transformation of MKO into a deviated terrorist cult is the result of Massoud Rajavi’s hegemonic and ideological leadership. Rajavi’s plotted ideological revolution was in itself a result of the organization’s failures during 1981-1985 and a process that turned to be the major cause behind all deviations and failures of organization.

– The end of the bipolar order is generally associated with the collapse of the USSR that had its great impact on revolutionary Marxism. As a result, majority of left-oriented groups building their struggle on revolutionary and violent underground militarism encountered shocking failed strategies. The claiming revolutionary MKO was not an exception; compelled to undergo a change, MKO is presumed a pro-democratic, non-violent group with no actual reformation of its old infrastructure.

– And a last group of commentators conclude that MKO is considered a good case for historical studies concerning idealist, revolutionary and militant groups turning into non-democratic cults acting under a pro-democratic guise.

Frankly speaking, no campaigning group can be found in Iranian contemporary history so controversial as MKO. The group’s blind assassinations and bloody terrorist operations under a false flag of freedom and democracy repelled Iranian people and made MKO disappointed of availing itself of the determinative public element inside the country to face absolute public rejection. The supporters of a once claiming revolutionary group at the moment are neither the internal or the external oppositions but state-sponsored warmonger Western parties and a few retired and former Western personalities in need of MKO’s money.

September 15, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Terror In The Name Of Democracy: Terrorism Continues

From the initiation of MKO’s armed warfare in mid-1981 until the end of the same year, the death toll of its terrorist operations rose to 338

A Point to Underline

An overlooked point increasing the complexity of the terrorist bombing on August 30 is that majority of the authorities having a role in undertaking investigations into the case and seeking prosecution of the elements have become the victims of terrorism themselves. Just after the explosion, the presidential council comprising Hojjat-al-Islam Rafsanjani and the Chief Justice Abdolkarim Moussavi Ardebili appointed the Prosecutor General Ayatollah Rabbani Amlashi to investigate the case. A few days later, he announced the result; the terrorist perpetrator had been identified to be Massooud Keshmiri. An assassination attempt was conducted on Ayatollah Amlashi by MKO and although he escaped the death, he was later assassinated by another violent group.

Ayatollah Ali Qodussi and Asaddullah Lajevardi were other involved authorities that were targeted by MKO. Ayatollah Ali Qodussi, the attorney general, was leading an investigation into the explosion at prime minister’s office. Just 6 days after the explosion, on 5 September, an incendiary bomb blasted at his office that led to his death. Asaddullah Lajevardi, a former director of Tehran’s Evin prison and public prosecutor, was assassinated at a time when he had been retired. But he was targeted by MKO because he was suggesting and engaged in a struggle to reopen the case of MKO’s bombing atrocities

A Brief Report of MKO’s terrorist Operations in 1981

From the initiation of MKO’s armed warfare in mid-1981 until the end of the same year, the death toll of its terrorist operations rose to 338 according to its own published reports. The operations can be classified under three categories: 1. Bomb attacks against official and public targets and assassinations of authorities, 2. Orchestrating violent and riotous demonstrations, 3. Targeting civilians. The followings are a record of MKO’s major and significant terrorist and violent activities within a 6 month span.

1. Bomb attacks against official and public targets and assassinations of authorities

June 1981: Bomb blast at Qom railway station left more than 50 casualties with 7 killed.

June 1981: A bomb was blasted in an attempt to assassinate Ayatollah Khamenei, Tehran’s leader of Friday Prayer at the time.

June 28, 1981: Bomb explosion at IRP headquarters killed nearly 74 high-ranking officials including Ayatollah Beheshti, the leader.

July 6, 1981: Assassination of chief prosecutor in Gilan Northern province.

August 30, 1981: Bomb explosion at prime minister’ office, killed the new president, Ali Rajai, and his Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar.

August 1981: Assassination of Hassan Ayat, a member of Assembly of Experts for Constitution and a Member of Parliament.

September 1981: Bomb explosion at the central building of the Prosecutor General of the Revolution killed Ayatollah Ali Qodussi

September 1981: Suicide attack targeted Ayatollah Seyyed Asadollah Madani, a senior cleric, in Tabriz.

A suicide attack targeted seyyed Abdolkarim Hashemi Nejad, IRP leader, in Khorasan province.

October 1981: A bomb blast on Nassir Khusrow Street in Tehran crashed down a hotel and many houses and shops and many civilians were killed.

A bomb explosion on Khayyam Avenue in Tehran killed 20 residents and left many injured.

November 1981: MKO detonated a bomb on Vali Asr Avenue in front of the Quds department store leading 4 people to their death.

On November 24 two bombs exploded at Tehran’s Railway Station killing three.

December 1981: A suicide attack targeted Ayatollah Abdul-Hussein Dastgheib, a senior cleric in Shiraz and a number of other civilians.

2. Orchestrating violent and riotous demonstrations

June 20 1981: MKO demonstrators set cars on fire and attacked civilians in downtown Tehran. At least 30 were reported killed and 200 injured from the sides of the demonstrators. Similar demonstrations were reported from other Iranian cities.

August and September 1981:

– 30 Mhjahedin demonstrators set tires on fire in Gurgan St. in Tehran.

– 25 Mhjahedin demonstrators set tires and a bus on fire and threw hand-grenades in Tehran-No St. in Tehran

– Around 80 Mhjahedin demonstrators set tires on fire, threw Molotov and fired guns in Kamali St. in Tehran

– Around 70 Mhjahedin demonstrators set two buses on fire and threw hand-grenades that left 10 casualties in Vali-Asr St. in Tehran

– 60 Mhjahedin demonstrators disturbed the order and killed two civilians in Azarbayjan St. in Tehran

– Around 60 Mhjahedin demonstrators threw Molotov at the banks and stores and exchanged fire guns in a clash with guards in Behnudi St. in Tehran

– Around 40 Mhjahedin demonstrators set tires on fire and threw Molotov in Sina St. in Tehran

– Around 40 Mhjahedin demonstrators fired guns at people and police forces in Behnudi St. in Tehran

– Around 100 Mhjahedin demonstrators set two buses and some tires on fire and threw Molotov at a gas station in Vali-Asr St. in Tehran

– 12 Mhjahedin demonstrators threw Molotov at a greengrocer in Behnudi St. in Tehran

– 27 September: Many armed Mhjahedin demonstrators set a few buses on fire and machine-gunned civilians killing and injuring them in downtown Tehran.

3. Targeting civilians

The civilians who were targets of MKO’s terrorist atrocities were of a variety of classes; teachers, merchants, drivers, workers and the like. Majority of them were targeted and attacked on charges of being a supporter of the Islamic Republic, having beard, and resisting against the perpetrators’ demands.

September 15, 2012 0 comment

The MEK to launch Armed Struggle

Terror In The Name Of Democracy

Terror In The Name Of Democracy: The Outset of a Phase of Violence

As the bankrupts of democracy, MKO began casting shadows of terrorism over Iran

“Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.” (Bertrand Russell)

The number of the word’s presidents and prime ministers assassinated since the mid-twentieth century reaches just about 50. Out of them, those assassinated by the use of the most violent and horrific methods, suicide or bomb blast, hardly outnumber a hand’s fingers. But the concurrent assassination of a president and his prime minister in a terrorist strike has a single record in its kind. And the untold about the event that may never repeat in the history is the key role of an ousted president as an accomplice to erase his successor. And the bare but shocking truth about the event is that almost all people being a high authority to investigate the complicated case or initiate prosecution for the terrorist offense turned to become the target and the victims of terrorism themselves. And it was just one of many shadows of terror that terrorists cast over Iran.

On August 30, 1981, a bomb explosion at a meeting of the National Security Council held at the Prime Minister’s office led to three immediate deaths: Mohammad Ali Rajai, the Iranian President, Mohammad Javad Bahonar, the Prime Minister, and Abdolhussein Daftarian, the prime ministry’s authority. Hushang Dastjerdi, the head of the national police, the fourth victim, passed away 6 days later as a result of the injuries. The terrorist plot, although incomparable with the preceding June 28 explosion quantitatively, the explosion in the Islamic Republic Party IRP killing at least 74 high-profile personalities, has its record as a bloody chapter in Iranian post-revolution history, a mysterious and complicated plot with many aspects still remaining ambiguous and many questions unanswered.

No doubt, the perpetrators of such ruthless, violent plots fail to provide the slightest justification for proven terrorist acts that are tantamount to a declaration of war against a nation. The responsible group, Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI/NCR), after tolerating ultimate failures in winning public trust in two preceding presidential and parliament elections, had already started inventing pretexts to declare its war. In its military communiqué that implied a blatant declaration of a violent warfare against the Islamic Republic and was documented as a clear vindication of the group’s perpetrated terrorist crimes, MKO complained of misbehavior and “illegal and unlawful” undertaking against the still in office president, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, whose conspiratorial collaboration with some opposition groups made the Iranian parliament to hold a debate on his presidency competence that finally led to his impeachment.

Sparks of Animosity

The president Bani-Sadr’s close connection and sympathy with a wide range of opposition groups, particularly his direct and strong support of MKO and giving the group a free hand in social and political affairs, as well as his incompetent function as the commander of the armed forces to confront the invaliding Saddam’s army made Ayatollah Khomeini to reclaim the power of Commander-in-Chief on 10 June 1981. Just 10 days later, Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the Parliament Speaker at the time, apprised Ayatollah Khomeini of deputies’ decision about stripping Bani-Sadr of his presidential power. The response was clear; as the leader with the constitutional authority, Ayatollah Khomeini signed dismissal of Bani-Sadr.

In its first political-military issued communique No. 25 dated 17 June 1981, just three days prior to the first violent moves, MKO made references to events that motivated the organization to make a blatant decision to wage an armed warfare against the Islamic Republic:

“… At the same time, we are witnessing illegal arrests of the members of the presidential office whose names and the news of their arrests are not announced in some instances. Of course, they [the regime] are preparing a comprehensive plan of arresting progressive-seeking characters and antagonists of monopoly in the country. Mojahedin Khalq Organization, while protesting such unlawful and counterrevolutionary actions, thereby obtains permission from the hero Iranian people, and by the help of God, to adopt the most decisive revolutionary resistance through any possible means for the preservation of its members, especially those central cadres of the organization that are in fact considered a pivotal part of the people and revolution.”

On the evening of 20 June 1981, when the Parliament resumed its impeachment debate, MKO orchestrated a series of mass demonstrations that shook Tehran and some other Iranian provincial towns. Rioters had orders to carry small arms and cold weapons and soon the demonstrations turned into street battles that lasted more than three hours. The battles reportedly left heavy casualties and MKO rioters overturned buses and set the parked cars and motorcycles on fire. Although MKO’s plot to cause a widespread civil disturbance to lead the country into a serious civil war faced a total failure, the group adopted a different violent tactic since the day after.

To be continued

September 5, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Terrorists Propagate by Doing Violence

MKO’s terrorist deeds approves a fact that it could never distinguish justification from legitimacy

Truth can never be propagated by doing violence. Those who believe in the justice of their cause have need to possess boundless patience, and those alone are fit to offer civil disobedience who are above committing criminal disobedience or doing violence. (Mahatma Gandhi)

On 30 August 1981, Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI) set off a bomb in Iranian Prime Minister’s Office at 3 pm where the National Security Council was holding a meeting. The blast killed the new Iranian President, Muhammad-Ali Rajai, and his recently named Prime Minister, Mohammed Javad Bahonar. Now nearly three decades after the terrorist perpetration, it can be studied from different aspects.

The terrorist act, one of the most outrageous and blamable form of terrorism in the world history, was somehow endorsed by the West when they deliberately preferred to remain silent on the act that would trigger a global tension if it happened in a Western country. At the same time, none of the Western countries approved use of terrorism as a means of implacable determination to achieve undemocratic and ambitious ends. Oddly enough, it was committed at a time when MKO was plotting its terrorist plans in its Paris safe-haven under French protection.

Bombings perpetrated by MKO not only arouse outrage and anger among the nation, but also were condemned by a global consensus on the issue. That is true that some countries for certain political motives and interests, including that of seeking a degree of political autonomy or invading other countries, hardly respect the principles of combating the truculent phenomena of terrorism, the global consensus to combat terrorism in no way justifies use of terrorism in any form.

An analysis of any terrorist deed with the cost and impact imposed on the society among whom it has been committed illuminates dark aspects of the reason behind the deed. In fact, any terrorist act carries indirect messages from its perpetrators to the target societies. In other words, it can be said that any terrorist act is an abrupt undemocratic reaction against democratic and legal practices within a society. MKO’s terrorist deeds that plagued Iran following its defeat in both political and social fronts after its nationwide uprising of 20 June 1981 each carry coded messages which MKO’s terrorist campaign aims to convey. The prime target of the August 30th blast, Muhammad-Ali Rajai, won a landslide presidentialt election to replace the ousted Bani-Sadr. His prime minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar, won a unanimous vote of the parliament as the head of the cabinet. In fact, MKO’s terrorist act did not aimed two leading figures of the regime but directly targeted the vote of people and their representatives.

MKO issued no immediate announcement to accept the responsibility of the operation and took no clear position. However, in a telephone interview reflected in some Western newspapers at the time, Massoud Rajavi said that the fatal bombing at the prime minister’s office was carried out “by the legitimate resistance movement”. But his further explanation made it explicit who he meant by the ‘resistance movement’: “I am not informed at this time exactly who planted the bomb, but it was the resistance movement and I do not deny that the Mujahedeen make up the majority of that movement”.

MKO claimed to have committed the crime as a legitimate resistance on behalf of the nation, but there is no record of when and where people voted to recognize the legitimacy of a self-proclaimed resistance that possessed no patience to fit social disobedience. Moreover, MKO’s candidates, especially its leader Massoud Rajavi, had failed in the two earlier elections of the parliament and the Assembly of Experts which indicates they won no considerable publicity in spite of their hot campaigns claiming to be revolutionary avant-gardes. It is common in most democratic countries that struggle for power is conducted through free, democratic elections and no loser engages in aggressive, violent activities to revenge his defeat. Being great losers in political scene, MKO’s terrorist, violent deeds imply that the group in no way respected the democratic principles exercised by people.

The message Agust 30th blast conveys is that MKO never stands for any legitimacy; if MKO were to receive no political recognition to assume power, then, neither could the legitimacy of any election be recognized nor the votes of the very same people whose legitimate right decides for the legitimacy of any power structure. Actually playing no decisive role in Iranian revolution, MKO later came to arrogate the right of the leadership. The flight of Rajavi and Bani-Sadr to France, from where they conducted the terrorist operation of blasting the prime minister’s office in Tehran, approves a fact that they could never distinguish justification from legitimacy, that “truth can never be propagated by doing violence.”

September 1, 2012 0 comment

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