News

EU to offer €22 million aid for MKO members’ resettlement

The European Union plans to provide 20 million euros in aid for the relocation of Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK, a.k.a. MKO) members outside Iraq.

According to the A EU to offer €22 million aid for MKO members’ resettlement rabic-language website Voice of Russia, in her meeting with the Iraqi minister of Human Rights, head of the European Union Delegation in Iraq Ambassador Jana Hybáškova, said the EU plans to allocate 22 million euros for the relocation of MKO members outside Iraq in order to respond to Iraq’s requests.

The Iraqi Minister of Human Rights said the GOI has been seriously obligated to the agreement signed with the United Nations.

The United Nations and the Government of Iraq signed on December 25, 2011, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a humanitarian and peaceful resolution of the situation of the MKO members in Iraq.

Mohammed Shia al-Sudani criticized as “irresponsible” the countries who are constantly expressing concern over the condition of MKO members in Iraq, but refuse to accept them in their countries.

A number of other representatives of diplomatic delegations in Iraq were also present at the meeting.

Germany’s ambassador to Iraq referred to his country’s readiness to accept 100 members of the MKO, adding “87 of them had been living in Germany.”

Voice of Russian, arabic – translated by Habilian Association

February 2, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

U.S. to move 3000 MKO terrorists to Romania

As it became known from the Romanian Foreign Ministry employees dialogue in a social network “WordPress” http://danamarca70.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/48875763/

Currently the U.S. and the Romanian government are negotiating the deployment about 3 thousand representatives of the terrorist organization “Mojahedin-e Khalq” (MEK) on the territory of Romania. It is assumed that in the case of the Romanian leadership consent members of the group will be compactly settled near the city of Craiova.

According to Ioana Raiciu and Dana Marca, the Romanian Foreign Ministry employees the U.S. State Secretary and the Romanian Foreign Minister discussed the issue of militants migration during the meeting in Brussels in early December. John Kerry’s adviser Jonathan Weiner who deals with the problem of MEK migration is to arrive in Romania with the same purpose.

I turned to the Romanian Foreign Ministry press service for confirmation of these data by phone using the telephone numbers listed on the ministry’s website, but they refused to give any comments, saying this is a too sensitive issue.

Indeed, the disclosure of the information about moving about 3 thousand terrorists to the country is sure to cause a violent public backlash against the government. At the same time, the information leak to the Internet possibly means that Romanian authorities are trying to test the waters before making official statements.

So what sort of an organization the “Mujahedin-e Khalq” is?

“Mojahedin-e Khalq” is an Iranian Islamist terrorist organization in exile, which advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since its inception in the mid 60s, this group has made numerous assassination attempts on the Iranian leadership, murdered the U.S. military personnel and civilians, supported the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 calling for the execution of embassy staff.

In 1981 MEK members killed 70 Iranian officials including the prime minister, the president and the head of the judiciary. A decade later, they organized a coordinated attack on the Iranian embassies in 13 countries. During the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-88, the group fought against Iran on the side of Saddam Hussein. In total the organization killed more than 50 thousand people in different countries.

In 1997, the U.S. State Department put the MEK into a list of terrorist organizations. And in 2002, the European Union did the same, but in 2009 the EU crossed it out of the list. And in 2012, the United States followed the example. At the same time, the organization is still considered a terrorist one in Iran and Iraq.

One can hardly say that the MEK has completely abandoned the ideas of terror. According to the American TV channel NBC and other media reports, the MEK played its role in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. According to other data, the organization was also involved in the murder of Mojtaba Ahmadi, the IRGC cybersecurity service commander, as well as in a serious accident at the factory for the production of heavy water in Arak in autumn 2013.

According to the American TV channel CNN, a terrorist organization has a strict military structure. The MEK headquarters is based in the so-called Ashraf “refugee camp” in Iraq .

to download the video file click here

You can see a straight column in blue and white uniform marching on a spacious area framed by the lion sculptures. According to Michael Ware, the author of the video, back in 2007 Camp Ashraf numbered about 4,000 fighters and was one of the best military bases in Iraq. The MEK has more than 2,000 tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers and air defense means. The territory is a small town with shopping malls and hospitals, blooming gardens, monuments and fountains, which is totally unexpected in war-torn Iraq.

Moreover the Iranian Mujahideen are considered to be involved in undermining the bus with Israeli tourists in the Bulgarian resort of Burgas in summer 2012. The Bulgarian secret services allegedly accused Lebanese Hezbollah but the group rejects all charges despite the fact that it took the responsibility for many terrorist attacks previously.

The terms of an agreement are still unknown. However, the U.S. is likely to use all available means and methods of pressure and persuasion to make Traian Basescu take the right decision. It is obvious that the United States doesn’t really care about the interests of Romania and its people as well as the security in the Balkans.

Delyan Martov, Sofia

December 26, 2013 0 comments

Iran

Iranian Government Fires Back at MEK on Nuclear Site Claims

Fars News Agency, the Iranian government’s appropriately named mouthpiece news organization, reports today that the regime rejects its most vocal exiled opponent’s claims of evidence of a hidden nuclear site north of Tehran.

The Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK, MKO) is just, like, totally full of crap, is basically what Iran’s foreign ministry flack said in the report. So full of crap, in fact, that he barely wastes any breath refuting them:

Speaking to FNA on Friday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Araqchi strongly rejected the MKO’s claim, calling it continuation of the story-tellings of a desperate group.

“This story-telling is not worth responding [sic],” Araqchi said.

Zing?

Apparently, in an earlier report, Araqchi also called the MEK’s latest release just one more cog in the giant Zionist system to disrupt the Shiite status quo or whatever. Awkward…

The MEK claimed Thursday to have evidence of a nuclear site existing in tunnels beneath the town of Damavand. The AFP story got picked up by a bunch of news sites, including Fox News. Nevertheless, the claim is unsubstantiated by any evidence so far.

By Julie Ershadi.

Julie Ershadi is a freelance writer and producer based in Washington, D.C. She covers Iran–U.S. relations, civil liberties, and politics

October 13, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Who paid for Mojahedin Khalq Terrorists Ad in Washington?

Controversial Iranian Group Attempts To Take Out Washington Post Ad, Accidentally Sends Invoice To Opponent

Whoops

The M.E.K, short for the Mujahedeen-e Khalq or People’s Mujahideen of Iran, is an exiled Iranian opposition group that was previously designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the State Department until its removal in Sept. 2012.

The M.E.K has a number of high profile backers in the U.S. Here’s former House Speaker Newt Gingrich bowing to M.E.K. leader Maryam Rajavi in 2012. At the time the M.E.K was still labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S.

The National Association of Iranian Academics in Britain took out a Washington Post ad in 2011, writing an open letter to President Obama asking him to take the M.E.K. off the list of terrorist organizations.

Via thinkprogress.org

The letter was signed by a number of prominent Democrats and Republicans, including former members of the Bush And Obama Administrations.

Via thinkprogress.org

The State Department labeled the M.E.K. a terrorist organization for a number of reasons, among other things, they staged terrorist attacks killing U.S. military personnel and civilians. They were also funded by Saddam Hussein.

From the State Department’s website:

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. Though 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 the American hostages.

Before Operation Iraqi Freedom began in 2003, the MEK received all of its military assistance and most of its financial support from Saddam Hussein. The fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime has led the MEK increasingly to rely on front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities.

Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the group was disarmed and has said they have renounced terrorism. They started lobbying to get their name removed from the list of foreign terrorist organizations. The group managed to achieve this in Europe in 2009, and eventually, the U.S. in September 2012.

Via state.gov

One of the M.E.K.’s supporters, The National Association of Iranian Academics in Britain, recently attempted to take out an ad in The Washington Post.

Here’s the invoice:

Even though the National Association of Iranian Academics in Britain was supposedly an independent group of M.E.K. supporters, the recent ad invoice is signed by Shahin Gobadi, a Paris-based spokesman for the M.E.K.’s parent organization.

The signed-copy of the invoice is also addressed to the wrong place. The address listed is the office of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), who OPPOSES the M.E.K. and ran a campaign to stop them from being delisted as a terror organization.

The NIAC still has an entire section of their website devoted to opposition to the M.E.K. So accidentally signing a copy of contract addressed to them is particularly embarrassing.

Via niacouncil.org

By accidentally signing this invoice and somehow failing to notice that it was addressed to their opposition, the M.E.K. outed itself as the ones pulling the strings at the National Association of Iranian Academics in Britain.

Andrew Kaczynski,Buzz Feed

October 12, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MEK Makes Desperate New Iran Nuclear Accusation, Reuters Yawns

With the world anticipating real progress at the next round of P5+1 talks set to start next week in Geneva, the MEK is getting desperate. Because they appear to only want a violent regime change in Iran, talk of actual diplomacy is their worst nightmare. Today, Reuters reports on the latest wild accusation tossed out by the MEK using the “umbrella” organization of the National Council of Resistance of Iran:

An exiled Iranian opposition group said on Thursday it had information about what it said was a center for nuclear weaponisation research in Tehran that the government was moving to avoid detection ahead of negotiations with world powers.

Reuters clearly was unmoved by the accusation, as they immediately pointed out that NCRI is biased and politically motivated. However, even in pointing out the bias of NCRI, Reuters perpetuates a myth that has been disproven:

The dissident National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) exposed Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy water facility at Arak in 2002. But analysts say it has a chequered track record and a clear political agenda.

Uhm, yes. Having your major group spend decades on the list of terrorist organizations (before eventually buying their way off the list and registering as a lobbying group) would indeed qualify as “a chequered track record”. But Reuters insists on repeating the falsehood that the NCRI and MEK were responsible for exposing the underground enrichment site at Natanz. That myth has been thoroughly debunked by Jeffrey Lewis:

The debate about whether Iran has constructed a clandestine centrifuge program drives me nuts.

You mean other than the one we already found?

And by we, I mean the United States—or at least its intelligence community. As I understand the sequence of events, the United States—knowing full well that Iran had a clandestine centrifuge program—watched Iran dig two MASSIVE HOLES near Natanz (see the big picture), then ratted the Iranians out to the IAEA. About the same time, someone leaked that information to an Iranian dissident group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which then released the second-hand dope in a press conference where they got the details wrong.

Lewis goes on to cite multiple independent sources to confirm that the intelligence community, not the NCRI, was responsible for discovering the Natanz facility. [It is also instructive to note the role ISIS played in the charade of promoting NCRI responsibility.]

Aside from that major error on attribution of the discovery of Natanz, Reuters was so unmoved by the newest ploy from NCRI that they didn’t even rewrite today’s article very much from the last wild NCRI accusation in July (the link here is to CBC carrying the Reuters story):

But analysts say it has a mixed track record and a clear political agenda.

But in that July story, Reuters went further in linking that accusation to a desire to derail diplomacy:

The latest allegation comes less than a month after the election of a relative moderate, Hassan Rouhani, as Iran’s new president raised hopes for a resolution of the nuclear dispute with the West, and might be timed to discredit such optimism.

Yes, the MEK clearly sees diplomacy as the real enemy. That article also rehashed the abject failure of an accusation NCRI and MEK made in 2010:

In 2010, when the group said it had evidence of another new nuclear facility, west of the capital Tehran, U.S. officials said they had known about the site for years and had no reason to believe it was nuclear.

It would appear that NCRI and MEK need to step up their acts. They have reached a level of incompetence that is barely worthy of rewriting the standard dismissal that Reuters keeps on file.

by Jim White , EmptyWheel

October 12, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Former U.S. officials at MEK rally outside UN

Former U.S. officials blast diplomacy with Rouhani at MEK rally outside UN

Former U.S. officials joined an Iranian expatriate group in a rally outside the United Nations Tuesday to blast any diplomatic opening between the Obama administration and Iran.

Thousands of Iranian-American supporters of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (the People’s Mojahedin of Iran) transformed Manhattan’s Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, right outside the UN building where the General Assembly was taking place, into a sea of MEK flags and pictures of MEK leaders Maryam and Massoud Rajavi. Their ranks were bolstered by some Syrian-American supporters of the Syrian opposition and others who were bussed-in from around the country. Other participants included Americans from around the country–some of whom “didn’t have a clue what it was all about,” in the words of one attendee–who had their tickets, food and hotel paid for by the organizers of the rally.

While the Iranian expatriates, some of whom fled the country in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, chanted for the downfall of the Iranian regime, former U.S. officials spoke on stage.

The stars of the rally included former U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton; former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani; former Rhode Island Democratic Representative Patrick Kennedy; and former chairman of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele. They had one uniform message: stop Iraq from cracking down on MEK members and halt the Obama administration from carrying out talks with the new Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani.

The rally was held immediately after President Obama addressed the UN–where he hinted that negotiations over Iran’s nuclear energy program might be pursued by the U.S–and just hours before Rouhani spoke. The new Iranian president said that he was open to nuclear negotiations as long as Iran’s right to enrich uranium–which is protected under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty–was respected. But those words were likely to do little to persuade hardline former U.S. officials who attended the pro-MEK rally.

“He ought to be thrown out of the UN,” Rep. Kennedy said of Rouhani. “President Rouhani and his mullahs…are waging a war not only against the Iranian people, but the Syrian people.”

Kennedy and other speakers decried the killings of 52 people in Camp Ashraf. On September 1, Iraqi security forces reportedly opened fire at the camp, where members of the Iranian group have been based since the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein supported them while they launched attacks against Iran. The majority of MEK members have moved to a different area in Iraq in anticipation of being resettled abroad.

Kennedy, along with Bolton, Giuliani and Steele have all received handsome speaking fees in the past from MEK-affiliated organizations. They were among a gaggle of former U.S. officials who lobbied the U.S. hard in recent years to take the MEK off the State Department terrorist list. The lobbying effort bore fruit last year when the State Department did just that, despite the MEK’s past involvement in violent attacks. The MEK had been trained by the U.S. in Nevada in 2005 and received U.S. intelligence that the group used to carry out the assassinations of Iranian scientists, according to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. In February 2012, NBC News’ Richard Engel and Robert Windrem reported that the MEK colluded with Israel to kill Iranian nuclear scientists.

The scene at the UN rally was standard for events put on by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political branch of the MEK. It was a well-orchestrated affair, and the group seems flush with cash. There were security barriers and guards preventing people from moving towards the front, where a row of yellow-hatted MEK supporters and members sat listening to former U.S. officials give speeches. There was free water and food, and large television monitors showing the speeches in the front set up throughout the plaza. Balloons at back of the rally were fashioned to spell out, “Viva Rajavi,” a reference to Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the MEK who spoke via video link at the protest. Rajavi has been criticized for running the MEK like a cult; Elizbeth Rubin, a New York Times contributor, described the camp in Iraq where the MEK was based as “a fictional world of female worker bees” where “acolytes of Rajavi” lived.

But the cultish aspects of the MEK–or their violent attacks on Americans and Iranians–have not deterred former U.S. officials from supporting them in the hopes of fomenting regime change, despite the fact that most Iranians dislike the group.

At the rally, Giuliani warned of the U.S. falling “under the spell of the mullahs” and the catastrophe of allowing “nuclear armed Iran” to exist. After denouncing the attacks at Camp Ashraf, the former GOP presidential candidate launched into blasting any chance of diplomacy with Rouhani.

Giuliani also repeated a charge aired by neoconservative groups that Rouhani was linked to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina that killed 85 people. “Rouhani…was certainly aware of it, certainly involved. Their blood is on their hands, and just wishing people ‘Happy Rosh Hashanah’ doesn’t wipe away the blood of these Jewish martyrs from Iran’s hand or Rouhani,” said Giuliani. But while Iran has been implicated in the attack, Rouhani himself “did not participate” in the meeting that approved the bombing, according to the Argentine prosecutor of the case.

Other former U.S. officials echoed Giuliani’s dismissal of diplomacy with the new Iranian leader. “I do not understand and I do not accept the president meeting with the leader of a terrorist state,” said former Senator Robert Torricelli.

While chances of an Obama-Rouhani meeting faded by day’s end, Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif will get together Thursday as part of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear energy program.

By Alex Kane ,Mondoweiss.net

September 25, 2013 0 comments

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Iraq set to deport Mojahedin Khalq

The Iraqi government is planning to deport Iranian dissidents of an opposition movement in exile that had led a guerrilla campaign against the US-backed Iranian Shah during 1970s, which included attacks on US targets

BAGHDAD (AA) – The Iraqi government is reportedly planning to deport Iranian dissidents of an opposition movement in exile, known as the People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran (MEK), which had led a guerrilla campaign against the US-backed Iranian Shah during 1970s, which included attacks on US targets.

The UN called on the Iraqi government earlier to do all it can to protect the Iranian exiles left in a camp north of Baghdad after confirming that 52 people were killed there.

Iraq’s government wants to shut down the facility known as Camp Ashraf (Liberty) and transfer thousands of Iranian exiles living there to another camp out of the country as it is growing impatience with a UN coordinated effort to resettle them abroad.

Undersecretary of the Iraqi National Security Falih al-Fayyaz said the Iraqi government ran out of patience as there were no international efforts to resettle them outside Iraq.

“Iraqi government will put an end to this issue soon,” Fayyaz said. “We want concrete solutions to transfer them to different countries”.

The Iraqi government had moved 3,400 MEK members to Camp Liberty in Baghdad in 2012 under an agreement with the United Nations.

Anadolu Agency,

September 24, 2013 0 comments

UK condemns violence at Camp Ashraf in Iraq

Press Release Foreign and Commonwealth Office

FCO: Foreign Office Minister condemns violence at Camp Ashraf in Iraq – Alistair Burt

Foreign Office press release

Foreign Office Minister, Alistair Burt, said:

"I am appalled to hear of the violence at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, which we understand has resulted in the death of many camp residents. We condemn this utterly, and our thoughts go out to the families of the victims.

"Our Embassy in Baghdad is in close contact with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, who are making an urgent assessment of the situation. We support their work, and call on the Government of Iraq to assist the UN fully. The Government of Iraq must also do everything necessary to ensure the safety of the residents and care for survivors, and must conduct an urgent and transparent investigation into what took place, and ensure those responsible are brought to justice."

September 3, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK actively working for our intel agencies

US Congressman Ted Poe: MEK actively working for our intelligence agencies

STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO REPORTS OF SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON’S INTENTION TO DE-LIST MEK TODAY

Washington, D.C. – “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s expected decision to delist the People’s Mojahedin Ted Poe: MEK actively working for our intelligence agencies Organization of Iran (MEK) from the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list is long overdue, but a much welcomed and warranted decision,” said Poe. “The MEK long ago renounced violence, and in recent years, has been actively working with US intelligence agencies to get information on activities inside Iran. …”

In March 2011, Congressman Ted Poe, a Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced H.Res. 60, urging the Secretary of State to remove the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran from the Department of State’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The bill has 98 bipartisan cosponsors.

US Congress,

August 1, 2013 0 comments

Terrorist groups and the MEK

Le Figaro: the anti-Iranian People’s Mujahedin Fight in Syria

Two members of the Iranian opposition group, People’s Mujahedin Organization were found dead a month ago in the Idlib region in Western Syria, reported a European MEP in contact with anti Bashar Al-assad rebels.
They fought alongside insurgents seeking the overthrow of the Syrian regime backed by Iran. Considered by France as a terrorist organization, the People’s Mujahedin have a base in Iraq and their headquarters in Parisian suburb. Western and Arab intelligence services would use them against Iranian interests and the allies of Tehran such as Syria.
Georges Malbrunot, Figaro Blog, May 30, 2013

June 11, 2013 0 comments

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