New York Times

Albania and its Sheltering of the Mujahedin-e Khalq on its soil

Albania has been the target of repeated digital assaults believed to be linked to its sheltering of an Iranian dissident group on its soil.

TIRANA, Albania — Customers at one of Albania’s biggest banks got a shock shortly before Christmas when a curt text popped up on their cellphones: “Your account has been blocked. The balance of your account is zero. Thank you.”

The messages, which turned out to be fake, signaled the opening of a disruptive new front in what Albanian authorities, the United States and NATO have identified as an enormous cyberattack orchestrated by Iran on one of the weakest members of the military alliance.

“It is an attack — an aggression against the sovereignty of one country by another state,” Prime Minister Edi Rama said in an interview in Tirana, the Albanian capital, calling the assaults “absolutely the same as a conventional military aggression only by other means.”

The onslaught has swept Albania, a Balkan nation with fewer than three million people, into a maelstrom of uncertainty and plunged it into big geopolitical battles involving Iran, Israel and the United States.

The reason for the attacks, which began with a stealthy penetration of government servers in 2021, but started causing visible disruption only last year, appears to be Albania’s sheltering of Mujahedeen Khalq, known as M.E.K., a secretive Iranian dissident group, on its soil.

Cyber attack on Albania

Also playing a role are the polarized politics of Washington, where prominent Republican hawks on Iran have been strong backers of M.E.K.

Hired by the Albanian government to investigate, Microsoft, in a report on the attack, attributed it with “high confidence” to “actors sponsored by the Iranian government,” identifying M.E.K. as the “primary target.” The campaign against Albania, the report added, was probably “retaliation for cyberattacks Iran perceives were carried out by Israel” and Mujahedeen Khalq.

A logo stamped on confidential Albanian documents leaked by the attackers features an eagle preying on the symbol of a hacking group known as Predatory Sparrow — which Iran blames for attacks on its own computer networks — inside a Star of David.

Predatory Sparrow has claimed responsibility for a number of sophisticated attacks against Iranian targets, including the state broadcasting company.

Albania, which has a large, mostly secular Muslim population, severed relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran in September, expelling its diplomats in response to what experts say is the most disruptive cyberattack in Europe on a NATO member since 2007, when Russia assailed computer networks in Estonia.

The attack on Albania has not only disrupted the government’s work and sought to undermine trust in financial institutions — a grave threat in a country that tipped into civil war in 1997 after fraudulent investment funds collapsed — but it has also involved the leak of a vast trove of confidential information.

Leaked data includes the names and addresses of more than a thousand undercover police informants; the email traffic of the head of the intelligence service, a former president and the former chief of police; and the banking information for more than 30,000 people.

The gravity of the sprawling assault has posed a tricky test for NATO, of which Albania is a member and enjoys protection under the alliance’s commitment to collective defense. (NATO says there was no effect on its networks or military operations.) Albania has been a member since 2009, one of 14 formerly Communist countries to join.
Article 5, the cornerstone of the alliance, says “an armed attack” against any of the allies in Europe or North America “shall be considered an attack against them all.”

The entrance gate to the camp housing Mujahedeen Khalq, known as M.E.K., a secretive Iranian dissident group, in 2020. A Telegram channel used by the attackers has featured regular posts denouncing the group as terrorists and demanding that Albania shut down a camp.Credit…Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
A black gate and a large white arch leading to a camp housing Mujahedeen Khalq at sunrise in Albania.

But cyberattacks, Mr. Rama said, are a different form of aggression, and, in terms of doctrine, “events are running ahead of us when it comes to” them. Because of this, he said, Albania has not invoked Article 5. “How does the alliance respond? By attacking the defined country through cyber, by using military means or by what?” he said.

NATO has limited itself to pledges to “support Albania in strengthening its cyberdefense capabilities” and denouncing “malicious cyberactivities designed to destabilize and harm the security of an ally and disrupt the daily lives of citizens.”

The attack on Albania began in 2021 when hackers penetrated an unprotected government computer and then expanded from that beachhead into networks used by the Albanian intelligence service, the police, border guards and other official agencies.

Lurking there for many months unbeknown to the authorities, they downloaded huge quantities of data and then broke cover last summer when they started deleting files from servers, crippling many government services. After that, they started leaking selected information, much of it secret, on a Telegram messaging service channel called Homeland Justice.

Just as officials thought that holes in Albania’s defenses had been plugged, the hackers turned on the private sector, hitting at least one major bank, Credins Bank, with fake messages of drained accounts and releasing confidential personal banking information.

“It just goes on and on,” Mr. Rama lamented. “This is a terrorist attack designed to create panic, to create fear, to fuel insecurity and to make people believe that nothing is under control,” he added. “They have planted ticking bombs everywhere with no clear pattern about when and where these bombs will blow up next.”

But the ultimate target of the attack seems reasonably clear. The Homeland Justice channel has featured regular posts denouncing M.E.K., the Iranian opposition group, as terrorists and demanding that Albania shut down a camp run by the group near the port city of Durres or face further mayhem.

Former members describe M.E.K., which in 2016 moved many of its followers to Albania from its previous base in Iraq, as a sinister cult. The United States classified it a terrorist outfit until 2012, but leaned on Albania to offer shelter to thousands of its members after their camp in Iraq came under attack from pro-Iran militias

“Welcome to hell…You serpents! You brood of vipers! How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” said a message posted on the hackers’ Telegram channel in December after Albania declined to close the M.E.K. camp. “As long as MEK exists so do we,” the hackers warned. “Why should our taxes be spent on the terrorists of Durres?” asked another message.

To reduce the risk of panic, the Albanian government prohibited news outlets from publishing information leaked on the Homeland Justice channel. The United States has dispatched experts from the F.B.I. and other agencies, though Mr. Rama said, “Of course we would like to see the U.S. government do more, to help more and be more present in helping us to build the best possible cyberdefenses.” Israel, which has extensive experience dealing with Iranian threats, is also helping.

But these efforts, according to Gentian Progni, a cybersecurity expert in Tirana, left suspected Iranian hackers lurking in Albania’s networks until at least the end of January. He noted that they posted online a government identification document generated on Jan. 29.

“We were told the hackers were no longer inside the system, but we can see they are still there,” Mr. Progni said in an interview last month. “This is a big mess and more serious than anyone thinks.”

Defectors from M.E.K. question whether Iran is behind the attack and believe the real culprit could be the opposition group itself.

There are some signs indicating that actors other than the Iranian state have been involved. These include the mysterious appearance of a second Telegram channel calling itself Homeland Justice. The new, fake channel contains many of the same posts as the original one linked to Iran but is curated to delete content that is particularly embarrassing to the Albanian government, like secret lists of police informants, and to add content apparently aimed at amplifying hostility to Iran.

The genuine Homeland Justice channel, in contrast, has sought to calm public outrage over the attack by repeatedly stressing that its target is not ordinary Albanians but M.E.K. and the Albanian government for refusing to expel the group.

The Albanian government has resisted succumbing to blackmail and has refused to evict M.E.K. Doing that, Mr. Rama said, would be “the biggest shame” for a country with a long history of sheltering refugees nobody else wants, including thousands of Afghans in 2021.

But he complained that M.E.K. were “not easy people, frankly,” and that the group had violated an agreement that it would refrain from using Albania as “a safe haven to make political activity against the Iranian regime.”

Instead, the group has organized high-profile events in Albania aimed at rallying opposition to Tehran, including an annual gathering called the Free Iran World Summit, whose paid speakers have included prominent American supporters like Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former New York mayor and a onetime personal lawyer to former President Donald J. Trump.

The Iranian dissidents, Mr. Rama said, have “friends on Capitol Hill that lobby for them” but have now been ordered to halt public activities against Iran. M.E.K. canceled the Free Iran event last year. “There is no more of this now,” the prime minister said. “We hope that they will not try again because it is not beneficial to this country and they have to accept that.”

Fatjona Mejdini contributed reporting.

Andrew Higgins is the bureau chief for East and Central Europe based in Warsaw. Previously a correspondent and bureau chief in Moscow for The Times, he was on the team awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting, and led a team that won the same prize in 1999 while he was Moscow bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal.

By Andrew Higgins – Ny Times

February 27, 2023 0 comment

NYT photo of the Ashraf3 CAmp of MEK in Tirana

The cult of Rajavi

Mujahedin-e Khalq gave us a tour in their Albania’s Camp

written by Nejat Society

Depending on whom you ask, the People’s Jihadists are Iran’s government-in-waiting or a duplicitous terrorist cult that forbids sexual thoughts. What are they doing in Albania?

MANEZ, Albania — In a valley in the Albanian countryside, a group of celibate Iranian dissidents have built a vast and tightly guarded barracks that few outsiders have ever entered.

Depending on whom you ask, the group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Jihadists, are either Iran’s replacement government-in-waiting or a duplicitous terrorist cult. Journalists are rarely allowed inside the camp to judge for themselves, and are sometimes rebuffed by force.

But after President Trump’s decision to assassinate Qassim Suleimani, a powerful Iranian general, it seemed worth trying again. Would a group that claims to want a democratic, secular Iran allow a reporter inside their camp?

The group’s loudest allies include Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, and John R. Bolton, his former National Security Adviser. Both have received tens of thousands of dollars for speaking at the group’s conferences, where these influential Americans describe the People’s Jihadists as Iran’s most legitimate opposition.

NYT tweet on his tour to the MEK camp

Initially, the group ignored several requests for access. So less in hope than desperation, I drove to its base and presented my credentials to a guard.

Three hours later, shortly before sunset, I got a call. To my surprise, I was being allowed inside. So began a series of interviews, propaganda sessions and tours that lasted until 1:30 a.m. A New York Times photographer was admitted several days later.

The group perhaps hoped to correct the impression left by previous journalistic encounters. A visit in 2003 by a Times reporter to the group’s former base in Iraq ended badly after her subjects spoke from a rehearsed script, and she was barred from talking to people in private.

This time around, most residents were off limits, but officials did allow private interviews with several members.

At my request, these included Somayeh Mohammadi, 39, whose family has argued for nearly two decades that she is being held against her will.

“This is my choice,” said Ms. Mohammedi, after her commanders left the room. “If I want to leave, I can leave.”

While the group may not have tried to hide Ms. Mohammedi, there were several odd and telling moments when secrets were tightly held.

In particular, senior officials stumbled when asked about the whereabouts of the group’s nominal leader, Massoud Rajavi, who vanished in 2003.

“Where is he?” said Ali Safavi, the group’s main representative in Washington. “Well, we can’t talk about that, that’s … ”

He trailed off, staring at his feet.

Is he still alive? Is he in Albania?

“We can’t talk about it,” Mr. Safavi replied, after several seconds of silence.

Founded in 1965 to oppose the Shah of Iran, the group later rejected the theocracy that replaced him.

Immediately following the revolution, the group attracted significant public support and emerged as a leading source of opposition to the new theocratic regime, according to Professor Ervand Abrahamian, a historian of the group.

The group claims it still attracts significant support, but Mr. Abrahamian said its popularity plummeted after becoming more violent in the early 1980s.

“When you talk to people who lived through the revolution, and you mention the name ‘Mujahedeen’, they shudder,” said Mr. Abrahamian.

By the 1980s, the group’s ideology had begun to center on Mr. Rajavi and his wife, Maryam.

To prove their devotion to the Rajavis, members were told to divorce their spouses and renounce romance.

At the time, the group was based in Iraq, under the protection of Saddam Hussein.

Its destiny changed after the American-led invasion of Iraq. After an initial standoff, the group, also known as the M.E.K., gave up its weapons. Despite having been listed by America as a terrorist organization in 1997, it was placed under American protection.

But in 2009, American troops ceded responsibility for the M.E.K. to the Iraqi government. Led by politicians sympathetic to Iran, the Iraqi authorities tacitly allowed Iran-allied militias to attack the group.

American and United Nations diplomats began searching for a safer country to house the group. After intensive lobbying by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, the American government also removed them from a list of terrorist organizations in 2012.

A year later, they were finally welcomed by Albania. The Albanian government hoped its hospitality would curry favor with Washington, according to the foreign minister between 2013 and 2019, Ditmir Bushati.

The group purchased several fields in a valley 15 miles west of Tirana, the capital, and built a camp there.

When I visited, the base seemed oddly empty. The group claims it houses about 2,500 members. But across the two days, we saw no more than 200.

The others seemed to have been sequestered away — or to have left the group altogether.

Dozens of former members now live independently in Albania. I met 10 of them, who each described being brainwashed into a life of celibacy.

Inside the group, they said romantic relationships and sexual thoughts were banned, contact with family highly restricted, and friendships discouraged.

All recounted being forced to participate in self-criticism rituals, whereby members would confess to their commanders any sexual or disloyal thoughts they had.

“Little by little, you are broken,” said Abdulrahman Mohammadian, 60, who joined the group in 1988 and left in 2016. “You forget yourself and you change your personality. You only obey rules. You are not yourself. You are just a machine.”

The group strongly denied the accusations and portrays many of its critics, including Mr. Mohammadian, as Iranian spies.

I was taken on a three-hour tour of a museum about the M.E.K.’s history, where the exhibits did not mention Saddam Hussein or forced celibacy. Instead, they focused on the group’s persecution.

Some rooms had been turned into replica torture chambers, to explain how Iranian jailers punished and interrogated supporters during the 1980s.

In each room, members waited in silence for me. These turned out to be survivors of the torture — ready to personally explain each method of repression.

One survivor, Raheem Moussavi, stood beside a bloodied mannequin and slowly detailed the four different techniques the Iranian torturers used to beat him. The process culminated in being whipped by a metallic cat-o’-nine tails.

Searching for influence, the group has turned increasingly to the internet.

I was shown a recording studio, where two musicians compose anti-regime songs and music videos for release on Iranian social media.

I wasn’t shown the computer suites, which defectors had portrayed as a kind of troll farm: junior members using multiple accounts on Facebook and Twitter, typing messages that criticize the Iranian government, lionize the M.E.K. leadership and promote its paid lobbyists.

When Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Bolton made public speeches in recent years, members were ordered “to take a particular line and tweet it 10 times from different accounts,” said Mr. Mohammadian, the former member.

I was taken to an empty gym, and then to a small cafeteria. It was already close to midnight, but a small group of women had been told to wait up for me.

They scoffed at the idea of the troll farm. As for the limits on their private lives, they said such discipline was necessary when battling as cruel an adversary as the government of Iran.

“You can’t have a personal life,” said Shiva Zahedi, “when you’re struggling for a cause.”

After I left, the group put me in touch with three former American military officers who had helped guard an M.E.K. camp in Iraq after the American invasion.

Each spoke glowingly about the M.E.K., and said its members had been free to leave since the American military began protecting it in 2003.

American officers had access to every area of the Iraqi base, and found no prison cells or torture facilities, said Brig. Gen. David Phillips, who commanded the military policemen guarding the camp in 2003 and 2004.

“I wanted to find weapons, I wanted to find people tied to beds,” General Phillips said. “We never found it.”

But other records and witnesses gave a more complex account.

Capt. Matthew Woodside, a former naval reservist who oversaw American policy at the Iraqi camp between 2004 and 2005, was not one of those whom the M.E.K. suggested I contact.

He said that in reality American troops did not have regular access to camp buildings or to group members whose relatives said they were held by force.

The M.E.K. leadership tended to let members meet American officials and relatives only after a delay of several days, Captain Woodside said.

“They fight for every single one of them,” he said.

It became so hard for some members, particularly women, to flee that two of them ended up trying to escape in a delivery truck, he recalled.

“I find that organization absolutely repulsive,” Captain Woodside said. “I am astounded that they’re in Albania.”

Besar Likmeta contributed reporting.

By Patrick Kingsley, Feb. 16, 2020

Patrick Kingsley is an international correspondent, focusing on long-term reporting projects. He has reported from more than 40 countries, written two books, and previously covered migration and the Middle East for The Guardian. @PatrickKingsley

February 17, 2020 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

M.E.K.: The Group John Bolton Wants to Rule Iran

written by Nejat Society

As talks with North Korea approach, the new national security adviser, John Bolton, has long pushed for regime change in another country with nuclear ambitions: Iran. One of his chosen replacements is the dissident group Mujahedeen Khalq, known as M.E.K.

President Trump has never been a fan of the Iran nuclear deal. Now, he’s told Britain, France and Germany to fix three key points by May 12 — or he’ll pull the U.S. out.

In the backdrop to these delicate negotiations? His new national security adviser, John Bolton.

Mr. Bolton has been vocal about killing the nuclear deal and supporting the Mujahedeen Khalq, or the M.E.K. It’s a fringe dissident group that calls for regime change in Iran. Mr. Bolton has said he has supported the controversial group for over a decade.

What is the M.E.K.?

The M.E.K. was one of the first organizations added to the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations in 1997 (it was removed from the list in 2012). During the 1970s, it was suspected of being behind the assassination of six Americans and the bombings of American companies in Iran. The group’s aim is to the overthrow the current regime in Iran.

Why does Mr. Bolton support this fringe group and what does that mean now that he’s the president’s national security adviser? Our video traces his past statements and breaks down what’s at stake.

Nilo Tabrizy,

May 14, 2018 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Why Rudy Giuliani Shouldn’t Be Secretary of State

written by Nejat Society

World leaders watching America make a shift under Donald Trump fall into two broad camps: those who hope that the United States will muddle through the next four years, an inexperienced president notwithstanding, and those who are eager to see Washington’s international standing and influence unravel.

The latter outcome could be averted if Mr. Trump selects an experienced and conscientious leader as his top diplomat. That would require appointing someone other than Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, who is reported to be the front-runner for the job.

Before addressing why he would be a dismal and potentially disastrous choice, it’s worth reflecting on the enormous foreign policy challenges the incoming administration will face.

The Trump administration will have to create a new Syria policy, which will require deft understanding of Russia’s intentions and capabilities in the Middle East, and careful management of a complex coalition of allies fighting the Islamic State. The Trump White House will most likely be tested early by North Korea’s bellicose and nuclear-armed leader. Leaders across Europe will be watching to see whether the Trump administration is willing to let the Western military and diplomatic alliance erode, which would be a boon for Russia. Closer to home, the new White House will have to weigh the risks of turning Mr. Trump’s irresponsible blame-Mexico campaign rhetoric into policy, which would severely undermine national security by halting cooperation between the two governments on migration from Central America, law enforcement matters and counternarcotics programs.

A successful secretary of state must be steeped in history and geopolitics and have shrewd negotiating skills and a clear sense of America’s capabilities, principles and the limits of Washington’s power.

The extent of Mr. Giuliani’s international experience has been largely limited to giving speeches and consulting work. He lacks any substantive diplomatic experience and has demonstrated poor judgment throughout his career. Indeed, as he became Mr. Trump’s most bombastic champion, Mr. Giuliani at times appeared unhinged.

For a taste of Mr. Giuliani’s foreign policy misadventures, consider his 1982 visit to Haiti as an associate attorney general. He preposterously proclaimed that there was “no political repression” on the island, which was then ruled by President Jean-Claude Duvalier, a tyrant. As mayor, he dabbled in petty diplomacy in 1995 by having the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat ejected from a New York Philharmonic concert celebrating the United Nations.

Mr. Giuliani was embraced as “America’s mayor” after 9/11, a label, which he promoted for years, that allowed him to gloss over his poor performance in City Hall. Under his direction, New York City decided to base its emergency command center in the World Trade Center, a prime target that had been bombed in 1993. In 2000, he enraged black New Yorkers with his shockingly insensitive response to the fatal police shooting of Patrick Dorismond, an unarmed black man, whom Mr. Giuliani derided as less than an “altar boy.”

Since leaving office, Mr. Giuliani has earned millions working for foreign governments and businesses, which would raise a flurry of potential conflicts of interest. For instance, he was paid to deliver speeches in 2011 and 2012 defending a cultlike Iranian exile group that was on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

In the long list of ridiculous things Mr. Giuliani has said, his remarks about President Obama in February 2015, when the presidential campaign was gearing up, were particularly disgraceful. “I do not believe that the president loves America,” Mr. Giuliani said at a dinner in Midtown Manhattan. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”

Mr. Trump, who has no background in international affairs, would be wise to seek the counsel of former Republican secretaries of state about the demands of the job. Anyone offering sound advice would urge him to scrap plans to have Mr. Giuliani run the State Department.

By Editorial Board,

November 19, 2016 0 comment

Camp Liberty

Six Killed in Shelling of Iranian Refugee Camp in Iraq

written by Nejat Society

Six people were killed and more than 50 were wounded on Saturday when several dozen mortar shells fell on a refugee camp for members of an Iranian opposition group, according to an Iraqi police official.

The camp, on the site of a former American military base near the Baghdad airport known as Camp Liberty, is home to about 3,400 Iranian exiles who are members of Mujahedeen Khalq, or M.E.K., a militant organization. It was removed from the State Department’s terrorist list in September after years of intensive lobbying from prominent American politicians and former military officers, who viewed the group as a legitimate democratic alternative to the Iranian government.

In an e-mail sent to news media outlets in Iraq, the military wing of Hezbollah in Iraq, a militant organization believed to have connections to the main Lebanese group and to Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack and warned that others would follow.

Although Hezbollah in Iraq was active during the American military presence there, attacks by the group died down after the Americans left, and its leaders said they would lay down arms and join the political process. But in an ominous sign that a recent spate of deadly sectarian conflicts in Iraq might escalate, the group announced at a recent news conference that it was establishing a militia to fight Sunni groups that had been attacking Shiites. Camp Liberty is meant to be a temporary residence for the Iranian refugees while the United Nations works to find host countries for them. In a statement issued from Geneva, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, António Guterres, called the attack “a despicable act of violence” and said the residents of the camp were asylum seekers entitled to international protection.

In a statement, the M.E.K. accused the Iranian government and Iraqi forces of being behind the attack, and said the Iraqi government had recently removed the blast walls surrounding the camp, leaving the refugees unsafe. The group said that more than 100 had been injured in the shelling and that its demands to return to its previous location in Iraq, Camp Ashraf, had been ignored.

“The residents and their representatives have warned about a massacre by the Iranian regime and the Iraqi forces,” the statement said, “and demanded several times from the secretary general of the United Nations and U.S. officials to return to Camp Ashraf, where concrete buildings and shelters are available.”

Ali al-Moussawi, an Iraqi government spokesman, denied that Baghdad was involved, saying the accusation from the M.E.K. “is not the first time when they blame us for everything.”

The United Nations demanded that the Iraqi government open an investigation, saying in a statement that Martin Kobler, the United Nations special representative for Iraq, “called on the Iraqi authorities to immediately ensure medical care for the wounded.”

The M.E.K. had long resisted leaving Camp Ashraf, on land that had been set aside by Saddam Hussein, the toppled Iraqi dictator, and did so only because the United States made it a condition of dropping the group’s terrorist designation. An American official said in August that the M.E.K. had been using Camp Ashraf for paramilitary training.

The group carried out bombings in Iran in the 1970s against the shah’s government and later against the Islamic government, causing the death of several Americans, but by most accounts it has not engaged in terrorism in recent years. But Iraq’s current government, a close ally of Iran, views the M.E.K. as a terrorist group and wants it out of the country.

By YASIR GHAZI

February 13, 2013 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MEK May Remain on U.S. Terror List

written by Nejat Society

WASHINGTON — State Department officials are preparing for a possible decision by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to redesignate an Iranian opposition group as a terrorist Iran Group May Remain on U.S. Terror List organization, in part because of the group’s resistance to abandoning its camp in Iraq, two American officials said Wednesday.

The group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Mujahedeen, has mounted a costly campaign to be removed from the terrorist list, enlisting an array of prominent American politicians and former military officers to press the case that the group abandoned violence years ago.

The two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter involves litigation, said Mrs. Clinton had not made a decision yet. But they said the group’s refusal to complete a move from Camp Ashraf to the former site of Camp Liberty, near the Baghdad airport, may doom its bid.

Under a court ruling, Mrs. Clinton must make a decision on the terrorist listing before Oct. 1. While the group, also known as M.E.K., carried out bombings in Iran in the 1970s against the shah’s government and later against the Islamic government, causing the death of several Americans, by most accounts it has not engaged in terrorism in recent years.

Asked why the M.E.K.’s failure to move from Camp Ashraf was relevant to the terrorist designation, one official said that the group had long used the facility for paramilitary training. Though the group was disarmed after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he said, a refusal to move would raise questions about whether the group has truly changed its intentions.

A spokesman for the M.E.K. in Paris, Shahin Gobadi, said in a statement that linking the group’s cooperation in relocating and its designation as a terrorist group would be “illegal and illegitimate.” He said that to relist the group would be a “license” for Iraqi forces to “massacre” the group’s members in Iraq, and that the State Department would bear responsibility.

Under orders from the Iraqi government to vacate Camp Ashraf, which was given to the M.E.K. by Saddam Hussein, the group moved about 2,000 of the 3,200 residents to the new location to await a possible move as refugees to new countries. But the convoys stalled in May after M.E.K. leaders said conditions at Camp Liberty were inadequate.

The Iraqi government has close ties to Iran, which has complained about the presence of its sworn enemies at Camp Ashraf. A reported 47 M.E.K. members have been killed in previous clashes with Iraqi security forces, and both American and United Nations officials have urged the group to complete the move to avoid further violence.

On July 15, a 26-truck cargo convoy delivered air-conditioners, furniture, video games and other supplies from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty with the permission of the Iraqi authorities, a breakthrough that American officials hoped would persuade the M.E.K. to finish the transfer of the remaining 1,200 residents.

Instead, M.E.K. officials voiced new complaints about the conditions at Camp Liberty, which they described as a “prison,” and so far they have refused to resume the move. Dozens of members of Congress have written to Mrs. Clinton to express concern about the state of the camp, but American officials who have visited it report adequate conditions, including ample water and electricity and even a recent shipment of 200,000 cans of soda.

By SCOTT SHANE

August 16, 2012 0 comment

USA

Clinton urges MKO to complete move

written by Nejat Society

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Wednesday that a decision on whether to remove an Iranian opposition group from the list of terrorist organizations would depend in part on whether more than 3,000 of its members cooperate in moving to a new location inside Iraq.

The group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or People’s Mujahedin, is under pressure from the Iraqi government to move from Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad, where it was given territory by Saddam Hussein, the executed Iraqi dictator. Under an agreement negotiated by the United Nations, it has begun a move to a former American base near the Baghdad airport. United Nations officials have said they hope to find permanent homes for the exiles outside Iraq, where government forces have had several bloody clashes with the group, also known as the M.E.K.

In mid-February about 397 members of the group made the move. “There were complications, but it was peaceful,” Mrs. Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday.

But about 2,800 people remain at Camp Ashraf, and the group’s leaders have complained about conditions in the new location. American officials, who say the group has refused to occupy one building, blocked water trucks and resisted the opening of a clinic, are concerned that the group may balk at completing the move.

Mrs. Clinton told the committee that “M.E.K. cooperation in the successful and peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf” will be “a key factor in any decision” on its longstanding request that the State Department lift its terrorist designation. She did not elaborate, but an administration official said her remarks were meant to be a strong signal to the group that it must improve cooperation.

Lawyers for the organization went to court this week seeking to speed a State Department decision on the terrorist label for the group, which has a history of terrorism but says it long ago renounced violence. It has recruited a long list of prominent former American officials to endorse the cause, many of whom have been paid generous speaking fees by the group’s supporters.
By Scott Shane

March 1, 2012 0 comment

A U.N. Call to Aid Iraq’s Iranian Refugees MEK

written by Nejat Society

After decades of dictatorship followed by invasion and conflict, Iraqis began this year with a chance to build a peaceful future. If not managed carefully, however, a lingering issue from the Martin Kobler is the special representative of the U.N. secretary general for Iraq. past could stain this moment of opportunity with tragedy.

I am referring to the situation of Camp Ashraf, where a tense standoff has persisted between the government of Iraq and an Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), which for the last 25 years has occupied a self-enclosed camp only a few hours drive from Baghdad.

The government has made it clear that it wants Camp Ashraf shut down and MEK — which once fought alongside Saddam Hussein and is designated by the United States and some other governments as a terrorist organization — to leave Iraq. Baghdad sees its presence, in a place which is off-limits to the government, as an affront to national sovereignty.

At the same time, there are very real concerns about what closing this camp would mean for the human rights, safety and welfare of the approximately 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf. The United Nations strongly shares these concerns, which have been underscored vocally by the group’s supporters internationally, among them a number of U.S. and European officials and former officials.

There should be no confusion about the stance of the United Nations. We support only a peaceful, humanitarian solution for Camp Ashraf. We have been working hard to facilitate such an outcome — one that both respects Iraq’s sovereignty and provides the people of Camp Ashraf with a safe and voluntary path to a more hopeful life outside of Iraq.

When the Iraqi government announced late last year that it would be closing the camp by Dec. 31, the U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, spoke with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to ask for more time for negotiation. Many feared a repeat of the violence of April 2011, when dozens of Ashraf residents were killed in clashes with Iraqi security forces at the camp.

The United Nations welcomed Mr. Maliki’s decision to extend the deadline until April. We have carried out an exhaustive and impartial diplomatic effort since then, with the support of the United States and the European Union, to encourage a peaceful solution. We have gone the extra mile to consult with Camp Ashraf residents and their leadership in order to address their concerns.

The plan now agreed to by the Iraqi government should be given a chance to work.

As a first step, it calls for the camp residents to voluntarily relocate to a transit site at the Baghdad airport. In contrast to Camp Ashraf, this site would be monitored around the clock by observers from the United Nations. There, the residents would be interviewed by the U.N. refugee agency, the UNHCR, to determine their eligibility for refugee status, paving the way for their resettlement outside of Iraq. Most have filed refugee claims. A small number have returned to Iran in recent years, but many others will want to go elsewhere.

Under the same agreement, the government of Iraq has made two key commitments that it must uphold. First, it has accepted full responsibility for the safety and security of the residents, from the relocation process throughout their stay at the new facility. Secondly, it has promised that nobody would be forced to go to Iran or elsewhere against their wishes.

The new site is a former U.S. Marine base that can hold more than 5,000 people. It has been equipped at considerable expense to receive the residents of Camp Ashraf. It has cooking and medical facilities, space for recreational activities and provisions for women and religious observance. UNHCR has carried out a careful technical assessment and determined that the new camp meets the humanitarian standards it applies for refugee situations around the world.

The process has arrived at a moment of truth.

After agreeing in principle to move an initial group of 400 residents, Camp Ashraf’s leaders have hesitated in recent days to begin the move, placing new conditions that the Iraqi government rejects. The government’s patience is wearing thin, and further delay could lead to provocation and violence.

I am concerned that the perfect is becoming the enemy of the good. Change is understandably unsettling for the residents, but maintaining the status quo is neither a safe nor viable option.

The relocation of the camp residents is of course only a bridge to a longer-term solution — their resettlement outside Iraq. Without this, the horizon is unclear.

We are calling on the international community — particularly the United States and Europe, which have long traditions of accepting refugees — to confirm publicly their readiness to accept eligible residents. Supporters in the U.S. Congress and the European Parliament could do their part by backing the relocation plan and taking the necessary steps to find a home for the residents.

Equally importantly, we are reminding the government of Iraq of its commitments. Impatience should not lead to miscalculation. Any violent solution would be totally unacceptable.

Time is running out, and lives are at stake. All concerned parties — camp residents, the Iraqi government and the international community — must do their part to ensure that the peaceful path is the route taken on Camp Ashraf.

Martin Kobler is the special representative of the U.N. secretary general for Iraq.

By MARTIN KOBLER

February 16, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Strange Bedfellows in the Conflict with Iran

written by Nejat Society

As the European Union prepared to consider tough new sanctions against Iran on Monday, a group of eminent Americans was cozying up here to an exiled Iranian opposition group that the Washington's favorite terrorists, Mojahedin Khalq United States classifies as terrorists.

Even undeclared war makes strange bedfellows, and none more so than the former politicians, generals and spooks on the panel at a conference in Paris on Friday evening and their hosts, the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran.

In its checkered history, the P.M.O.I. has been accused of murdering American servicemen, was involved in not one but two invasions of the U.S. embassy in Tehran during the Iranian revolution, and allied itself with the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

More recently it claims to have provided information exposing details of Tehran’s attempts to produce a nuclear weapon, while vigorously denying widespread speculation that it might have assisted in recent unexplained assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

Western governments, including that of France where the group’s leadership is based, regard the Mujahedeen as more of a cult than a political movement.

Presiding over Friday’s conference in the old Bourse building in Paris was Mariam Rajavi, the movement’s leader and wife of its founder, Masoud Rajavi. He has disappeared from public view, perhaps emulating the Hidden Imam of the Shia Muslims .

Dressed in a familiar outfit of a modest but brightly colored suit and matching headscarf, she was greeted with chants of “Mariam, Mariam,” from the almost exclusively Iranian audience.

Americans on the international panel included General Hugh Shelton, former Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff; Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor; and Michael Mukasey, former U.S. Attorney General. Other panelists included Philippe Douste-Blazy, a former French foreign minister.

Gen. Shelton told Rendezvous he believed the U.S. had a sworn obligation to protect Mujahedeen refugees being evicted from Camp Ashraf in Iraq by a hostile government in Baghdad.

Camp Ashraf was a heavily armed encampment under Saddam Hussein from which Mujahedeen fighters attempted to invade Iran at the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. They were driven off. Today they enjoy little support in their home country, in spite of Mrs. Rajavi’s claims to lead the main resistance to the Islamic Republic, apparently because their efforts were seen as treacherous by many Iranians.

In the 2003 war that unseated Saddam Hussein, U.S.-led coalition forces attacked Mujahedeen military units but subsequently a ceasefire was arranged. Before the conflict, the Rajavis had repaired to their long-time base in the Paris suburb of Auvers-sur-Oise, which French anti-terrorism police raided in 2003, seizing millions of euros.

“There’s no longer any reason to keep these people on the terrorist list,” said Gen. Shelton, expressing an opinion that has won widespread bipartisan support in Washington, as my colleague Scott Shane has reported.

The P.M.O.I. — also known by its Persian title Mujahedeen-e-Khalq — has used a seemingly bottomless budget to push its case in the corridors of the U.S. Congress and to finance international meetings to maintain its profile.

Despite that, the State Department has adamantly refused to remove the group from its list of foreign terrorist organizations. A U.S court ruled in 2010 that the government must allow the PMOI a chance to rebut unclassified information the government used to justify its designation, Legal Times reported at the time.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has the matter under consideration.

The Mujahedeen fears the administration wants to keep a diplomatic line open to Iran in the escalating nuclear dispute. “Did you see those reports of Obama sending a secret letter to Tehran,” said a Mujahedeen insider knowingly.

Listing the P.M.O.I. as terrorists is the one thing on which Washington and Tehran agree and a delisting would be certain to derail any diplomatic initiative that might be under way.

As things stand, U.S. and European policy is to squeeze Iran economically until sanctions force it to yield on the nuclear issue.

The next step in that campaign will focus on Brussels, where European foreign ministers are moving toward a phased embargo of Iranian oil.

By HARVEY MORRIS

January 25, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

For Obscure Iranian Exile Group, Broad Support in U.S.

written by Nejat Society

At a time of partisan gridlock in the capital, one obscure cause has drawn a stellar list of supporters from both parties and the last two administrations, including a dozen former top national security officials. For Obscure Iranian Exile Group, Broad Support in U.S.

That alone would be unusual. What makes it astonishing is the object of their attention: a fringe Iranian opposition group, long an ally of Saddam Hussein, that is designated as a terrorist organization under United States law and described by State Department officials as a repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis.

The extraordinary lobbying effort to reverse the terrorist designation of the group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Mujahedeen, has won the support of two former C.I.A. directors, R. James Woolsey and Porter J. Goss; a former F.B.I. director, Louis J. Freeh; a former attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey; President George W. Bush’s first homeland security chief, Tom Ridge; President Obama’s first national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones; big-name Republicans like the former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Democrats like the former Vermont governor Howard Dean; and even the former top counterterrorism official of the State Department, Dell L. Dailey, who argued unsuccessfully for ending the terrorist label while in office.

The American advocates have been well paid, hired through their speaking agencies and collecting fees of $10,000 to $50,000 for speeches on behalf of the Iranian group. Some have been flown to Paris, Berlin and Brussels for appearances.

But they insist that their motive is humanitarian — to protect and resettle about 3,400 members of the group, known as the M.E.K., now confined in a camp in Iraq. They say the terrorist label, which dates to 1997 and then reflected decades of violence that included the killing of some Americans in the 1970s, is now outdated, unjustified and dangerous.

Emotions are running high as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton completes a review of the terrorist designation. The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq has said it plans to close the camp, Camp Ashraf, by Dec. 31 and move the people elsewhere in Iraq in order to reassert Iraqi sovereignty over the land where it is located, 40 miles north of Baghdad.

Two earlier incursions by Iraqi troops into Camp Ashraf led to bloody confrontations, with 11 residents killed in July 2009 and at least 34 in April of this year. The M.E.K. and its American supporters say that they believe the Maliki government, with close ties to Iran, may soon carry out a mass slaughter on the pretext of regaining control of the camp.

If that happens, the supporters say, the United States — which disarmed the M.E.K. and guaranteed the security of the camp after the invasion of Iraq — will bear responsibility.

“We made a promise,” said Mr. Ridge, a former congressman and governor of Pennsylvania. “Our credibility is on the line. They’ve been attacked twice. How can we possibly accept assurances from the Maliki government?”

Mr. Ridge suggested that the M.E.K.’s implacable hostility to the rulers of Iran should be a point in their favor.

“In my view, if you’re a threat to Ahmadinejad,” — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president — “well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Mr. Ridge said. He noted that the M.E.K. had provided information on Iran’s nuclear program during the Bush administration.

The M.E.K. advocacy campaign has included full-page newspaper advertisements identifying the group as “Iran’s Main Opposition” — an absurd distortion in the view of most Iran specialists. The M.E.K. has hired high-priced lobbyists like the Washington firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Its lawyers in Europe won a long fight to persuade the European Union to drop its own listing of the M.E.K. as a terrorist group in 2009.

The group’s spending, certainly in the millions of dollars, has inevitably raised questions about funding sources.

Ali Safavi, who runs a pro-M.E.K. group in Washington called Near East Policy Research, says the money comes from wealthy Iranian expatriates in the United States and Europe. Because “material support” to a designated terrorist group is a crime, advocates insist that the money goes only to sympathizers and not to the M.E.K. itself.

Congress has taken note of the campaign. A House resolution for dropping the terrorist listing has 97 co-sponsors, including the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan. At a hearing this month, senators pressed the defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta, about the threat to Camp Ashraf.

A State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, said officials there were “working as quickly as possible” to complete a review of the M.E.K.’s terrorist designation. American officials are supporting an effort by the United Nations to resettle Camp Ashraf residents voluntarily to other countries, a process that is making slow progress.

Other State Department officials, addressing the issue on the condition of anonymity because it is still under deliberation, said that they did believe the 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf were in danger as the Dec. 31 deadline approaches.

“We’re in constant talks with the Iraqis and the Ashraf leadership to show maximum flexibility on the closure of the camp,” one official said.

But the officials expressed frustration at what they described as the American supporters’ credulous acceptance of the M.E.K.’s claims of representing the Iranian opposition and of embracing democratic values.

In years of observation, the official said, Americans have seen that the camp’s leaders “exert total control over the lives of Ashraf’s residents, much like we would see in a totalitarian cult,” requiring fawning devotion to the M.E.K.’s leaders, Maryam Rajavi, who lives in France, and her husband, Massoud, whose whereabouts are unknown.

Moreover, the official said, the group is “hated almost universally by the Iranian population,” in part for siding with Mr. Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. A State Department cable this year concluded that any indication of United States support for the M.E.K. “would fuel anti-American sentiment” in Iran and would “likely empower Iranian hardliners.”

In Iraq, the M.E.K. is also widely despised, especially by the country’s Shiite majority, because it is accused of helping the Iraqi dictator crush a Shiite revolt in 1991 — a charge the group denies. Because of deep Iraqi hostility, American officials argue that merely dropping the terrorist designation would not end the danger of attacks on the group.

While the M.E.K. carried out a campaign of attacks from the 1970s to the 1990s, mostly targeting Iranian officials, supporters say it has renounced violence and has not engaged in terrorist acts for a decade. The designation law, however, allows Mrs. Clinton to keep the label for a group that “retains the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism.”

Such a decision would outrage the American advocates of reversing the terrorist label.

Mr. Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009, said the administration’s failure to act decisively threatened a “humanitarian catastrophe.” Mr. Mukasey said he did not believe the claim that the M.E.K. was a cult, but even if true, it was no reason to keep the terrorist listing. “These people are sitting in the camp, completely harmless,” he said.

Like other advocates, Mr. Mukasey said he had been paid his standard speaking fee — $15,000 to $20,000, according to the Web site of his speakers’ agency — to talk at M.E.K.-related events. But he insisted that the money was not a factor for him or other former officials who had taken up the cause. “There’s no way I would compromise my standing by expressing views I don’t believe in,” he said.

Artin Afkhami contributed reporting from Boston.

By SCOTT SHANE

November 27, 2011 0 comment

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