Articles

Canadian family asks Top Channel’s “Fiks Fare for help: “MEK mujahedeens took our daughter”

For the past 20 years, an Iranian family of Canadian citizenship have been trying to meet with their daughter, who joined the MEK when she was 16.

Today she is 38, but the parents still cannot meet her, although they have tried very hard and went through a lot of dangers to find her.

Mustafa Mohamadi and his wife addressed Fiks Fare for help regarding the situation that they are facing for the past two decades. They think that their daughter has been forced to become part of the organization.

“I and my family we haven’t been able to see Somaieh for the past 20 years. We have been living in Canada and our daughter lived with us until she was 16”, he said.

“We immigrated to Canada in 1994. The mujahedeens brainwashed her. She went to the Ashraf camp to fight the Iranian government. The mujahedeens had told us that my wife’s sister had been executed. My daughter had a very special connection to her aunt. When we were in Canada we used to help the Mujahedeen. We used to collect money for them every weekend. We knocked on doors asking for money to help them. Two years later, when my daughter was 16, a woman came to us in Canada. She was a member of MEK. She spoke to my daughter and told her she had met her aunt. She said she knew about the special relation they had. My daughter had tears in her eyes. She was invited to go to Iraq, to see where her aunt was staying. The mujahedeen member bought two tickets for two weeks. I agreed that she could go for two weeks”, says her father, Mustafa Mohammadi.

According to him, his daughter never came back after this. He and his wife have been asking for help for the past years, but no state institution has helped them.

They even say they received letters, signed by their daughter, asking US troops to intervene in Iraq and let her join her family. Those letters were sent to the Canadian embassy in Jordan, which sent them to Canada.

After this report, Fiks Fare made an inquiry at the MEK organization through an official e-mail. They asked information if Somaihe was at the Manza camp, in Albania. They also requested a meeting with the girl.

The journalists didn’t receive any official answer. They went to the Manza camp to try and meet the MEK representatives. After many attempts, MEK finally responded with an open letter, declaring that Fiks Fare had threatened Somaihe and the members of the Manza Camp. But Fiks Fare has recorded the entire conversation, which makes it clear that the journalists are asking for official information, based on the law.

Fiks Fare asked for an interview, after obtaining the letters signed by Somaihe Mohammadi, who has demanded to meet with her family in Canada on October 17th, 2014.

Today, in a press release, Somaihe refused to meet her parents and called them agents of the Iranian regime. She also confirmed that she was staying with MEK on her free will.

Albania Top Channel TV

September 6, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK agents mourning an advocate of war and violence

There is no surprise to see the agents of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ the Cult of Rajavi) participating in the memorial of Senator John McCain. The group’s propagandists in the United States, Alireza Jafarzadeh and Sona Samsami attended Senator John McCain’s memorial. As he tweeted, Jafarzadeh was “honored” to pay tribute to the deceased senator for what he calls “standing on the side of freedom fighters of Iran as they seek a free Iran and global peace”.

What Jafarzaed calls “freedom fighters” of Iran is the lexical equivalent of “Mujahedin_e khalq_e Iran”. Yes, senator McCain was standing by the side of them. He met the leader of the group Maryam Rajavi in Albania in April 2017.

The American journalist Michael Rubin who is a longstanding critic of the Iranian Government and an admirer of US warmongers against Iran , criticized senator McCain for the visit. “With this meeting, McCain has embraced the enemy of our enemy in the Tehran regime, but he has also embraced the enemy of the Iranian people,” he wrote at AEIdeas on April, 17th, 2017. [1]

Earlier in June2015, McCain attended the MKO annual gathering in Paris –that regularly features speeches and appearances of dozens of current and former officials from the U.S., Europe and the Middle East, all of whom join in the call for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. This was McCain’s first appearance by the side of the formerly terrorist designated MKO. “John McCain continues his long tradition of embracing horrible foreign groups,” asserted Daniel Larison of the American Conservative. “He frequently endorses dubious and disreputable groups when they happen to share his dangerous foreign policy goals.” [2]

“McCain has been a leading advocate for a policy that has sent weapons into Syria when they have been seized by Jabhat al-Nusra or ISIS,” Larison added. “Those are just the most obvious examples of McCain’s terrible judgment. McCain doesn’t discriminate when it comes to choosing allies of convenience in pursuing unwise and reckless goals, so it was probably just a matter of time before he started associating with the MEK.” [3]

After the death of Senator McCain, Larison cultivates his legacy as a Vietnam veteran and along-time Congressman. “He specialized in matters of national security and foreign policy, and yet he had a remarkable knack for misjudging practically every major foreign policy issue of the last three decades,” he writes. [4]

“McCain distinguished himself as a consistent proponent of unnecessary foreign wars in the name of American “leadership,” and the country was always worse off when the president heeded his recommendations,” Larison states. “He was a leading cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq and intervention in Libya, and he was wrong about both. He was also a Kosovo war supporter and has been a steadfast defender of U.S. support for the Saudi war on Yemen. When Georgia escalated a conflict with Russia, he insanely proclaimed, “We are all Georgians” and gave the impression that he was willing to risk WWIII over a dispute that had nothing to do with us. Despite his constant demands for more “action,” the U.S. did not intervene in Syria as forcefully or as soon as he wanted. He was even once quoted praising the Saudis for their role in Syria. “Thank God for the Saudis,” he said. He was famously hawkish on Iran (“bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran,” he sang), and in recent years went so far as to jump on the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) bandwagon. This is a record of horrible judgment and even more horrible costs for the people in the countries affected by the policies he supported.” [5]

Markha Valenta of Open Democracy describes senator McCain’s political characteristics as “a public man who made two runs at leading the most powerful war machine this world has known” but he believes that McCain’s bitter experiences in Vietnam justifies his violence-based strategies. “The nearly six years he spent in jail in Hanoi ravaged McCain physically and mentally,” Valenta writes. “His survival of them would come to establish his character and undergird his political career.”

The correspondent of Open Democracy notifies McCain’s desire to bomb Iran. “McCain fought the Iranian nuclear deal tooth and nail, and hailed Trump’s evisceration of it,” he suggests. “When it came to Iran, all of McCain’s readiness to reach across the aisle vanished. “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran”McCain once notoriously sang to the tune of the Beach Boys tune Barbara Ann.” [6]

McCain’s double standards for human Rights and terrorism is also discussed in Valenta’s article. “On the one hand, McCain’s close friendship with Israel and unrelenting enmity against Iran also meant enmity towards those Iran supported, from Hamas to Yemeni Houthis to Assad,” he write. “Even as McCain decried Assad’s violation of Syrians’ human rights and supported those rising in protest, he had absolutely nothing to say about the human rights of Palestinians and Houthis as they faced blockades, bombing, and incursions. Indeed, McCain loudly supported not only Israel but also the extravagantly undemocratic regime of Saudi Arabia (“thank God for the Saudis”), along with the Iranian dissident group Mujahideen-e Khalq (MeK).” [7]

He offers a short but enlightening description of the MKO as terrorist undemocratic cult: “MeK was notorious for a string of political murders in 1981 (including Americans), for joining Saddam Hussain in the war against Iran, and more recently for indulging in a host of aggressive cultish practices. Those who have left the group accuse it of ending romantic relationships, forcing others into arranged marriages, brainwashing, sexual abuse and torture. In short, going against all principles of social and political relation for which McCain stood. All this McCain was willing to ignore in publicly speaking with and on behalf of MeK: given the choice between democratic principles and undemocratic alliances against Iran, he chose the latter.” [8]

Therefore, a McCain-MKO alliance did not seem to have anything to do with “freedom” and “global peace”. Regarding the MKO’s violent past and its cult-like nature, it is definitely considered as a threat to freedom and welfare of its-own members and peace for the citizens of any society they live in. The first victims would be MEK members and the next targets could be Albanian, write the group’s former members and cult expert, Ann and Massoud Khodabandeh. [9]

Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] Rubin, Michael, What is John McCain thinking?, AEIdeas, April 12th, 2017.

[2]Larison, Daniel, McCain Is the MEK’s Newest Fan, The American Conservative, June 15th, 2015.

[3] ibid

[4] Larison, Daniel, McCain’s Foreign Policy Record, The American Conservative, August 27th, 2018.

[5] ibid

[6]Valenta, Markha, John McCain: on mourning a principled man … of violence, Open Democracy

29th, August 2018.

[7] ibid

[8] ibid

[9] Khodabandh, Massoud & Ann, False Flag Op In Albania Would Drive A Wedge Between The EU And Iran, Lobelog, August 30th, 2018.

September 5, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Answering the defamations of Margarita Kola and the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq cult

Mostafa Mohammadi and Mahbubeh Hamza

In a letter that Margarita Kola, the lawyer of the defunct terrorist Mojahedin group, has published in the Albanian media, Kola has repeated the slander and lies that the Mojahedin cult casts against me and my daughter whom they hold hostage. For this reason, we the parents of Somayeh wrote this answer to Mrs. Margarita Kola:

First, we say that Mrs Margarita Kola, in her letter written on behalf of a so-called phantom group called ‘The Committee of Lawyers for the PMOI in Albania (CJPA)’, repeats the lies that the Mojahedin terrorists throw at me and the hundreds of other parents of the members they hold hostage in Albania. She says that I, Mostafa Mohammadi, came to Albania to mislead public opinion and conduct a campaign to denigrate the defunct MEK terrorist organization.

Secondly, she claims that I am an agent of the Iranian government who exerts psychological pressure on my daughter to surrender; ie to abandon jihad and terrorism and become a normal person and have a civilized life away from violent extremism and radicalisation.

Third, she claims that Somayeh stands by her wish to remain in the MEK military camp and voluntarily refuses Canada and a free life.

Fourth, she repeats the idiotic propaganda slogans of MEK, which claims that MEK is a democratic and revolutionary organization, while the Iranian regime plans attacks against the elderly MEK members and that I am part of these attacks. In an illegal way, she asks the Albanian government to expel me from Albania so that the MEK terrorists and hostage takers will not have to face me in court.

In relation to the above, as Somayeh’s family, we say to Mrs Kola:

Be ashamed of the slander you fling at me and my family and for becoming party to a defunct terrorist gang that has held my daughter hostage for 21 years. If you were a real lawyer, you would not play with the card that you are a former US Embassy employee and would not blackmail people left and right with the slogan: “You know who I am, if you know you will save your job!” A real lawyer respects the law and does not write slander in the media. Because you – as a lawyer – know very well what is the sequence of criminal offenses; lack of free will, freedom of the person, deprivation of the right to free movement, the presumption of innocence, what is the difference between arrest and accompanying the police, what is a final decision or right to appeal.

I am not in Albania to attack MEK, I am here to release my daughter from the MEK’s terrorist-jihadist cult. I want to save my daughter from violent extremism and radicalisation. I want to save Somayeh from Manzas’ hell and take her to Canada’s freedom. At no time did I want to take my daughter to Iran, nor do I care what you do politically. I have left Iran as an asylum-seeker. If you look at my Canadian passport that MEK has copied, my country of birth exists alongside my Canadian nationality. Obtaining a visa from Iran to enter Iraq for a while does not make me anything, it does not make me less of a parent, nor take away the right to be the father of Somayeh. You as a lawyer should know that a visa does not show anything, but you have become a party to the defunct terrorists and slander me along with this group. As a lawyer, can you explain legally what is this radical group to my daughter? Why should the group interfere with our parental relationship and keep my daughter hostage? Why should I communicate through the media with my daughter? What guarantee do I have that my daughter is not being tortured or psychologically abused by this group, as the former Mojahedin members tell me? Why in any case did you not tell why I, a MEK supporter, wanted to remove my children from this group? You as a lawyer should know that my son stayed in MEK for five years and is witness to all the suffering there.

The Jihadist commanders Behzad Saffari, Jila Deyhim, Ahmad Taba etc., who hold my daughter hostage, led the gangs that beat me in Tirana in July and have their hands stained with blood and murder in Iraq, Iran, etc, one day, sooner or later will face justice just as Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic did. If they do not face justice in Albania, they will face justice in the European courts.

Commander Behzad Saffari, a jihadist who probably wrote for you the propaganda letter you have signed against me, is one of the key people in the kidnapping, abuse and psychological pressure of my daughter. He will one day face the law for his pressure and blackmail against my daughter as proven by Canadian sources. Behzad Saffari, who runs the MEK offensive in Albania and coerces the media not to publish the charges against the MEK under the justification of “if you do this, Iran will kill us”, is the person who tortured my son Mohamad in Iraq, holding me prisoner in a container in the desert, and he is the key person holding my daughter in Manza.

My daughter Somayeh Mohammadi is hostage to the terrorist MEK organization. The letters she writes are not written by her but by Mojahedin commanders holding her hostage in the Manza camp. The MEK jihadist command does not allow my daughter to go free but keeps her locked inside the camp. Why?

They are afraid that if Somayeh meets her parents and leaves of her own free will, she will publicise the crimes that MEK has comitted against her. The letters MEK publishes on her behalf are letters that the MEK itself writes. The MEK and jihadists like Behzad Saffari are so scared of my daughter that they do not want her to leave the Manzas jihadist camp and meet with her parents or journalists. They do not trust Somayeh to be free. For this reason, in recent weeks MEK has attacked and beaten and insulted Albanian media and journalists, Britons etc. who went to Manza camp to meet Somayeh. MEK does not dare at any time to let Somayeh go free. For this reason, they have probably written the letter you signed against us for you. They want to frighten public opinion and justify not allowing anyone to have access to a free Somayeh who does not live under the constant pressure of MEK jihadists. Somayeh is as free as the ISIS hostages who were free when they came out in front of the cameras and praised ISIS with a pistol at their heads. And you Mrs. Kola know this very well.

Commander Behzad Saffari has never forgiven Somayeh and never leaves her alone to be free because in 2004 when she was interviewed by Canadian authorities she expressed the desire to leave MEK. But as shown in reports from Canada (read Stewart Bell’s writings in Albanian.com), she was blackmailed by Behzad Saffari in the presence of Canadian officials and she lives in psychological terror of this terror Mojahed.

Mrs Margarita Kola. We, Somayeh’s parents, want our daughter to live as freely as you. To dress as she pleases. Go for a coffee like you. If she wants, to use a marital agency like you. Marry, have a family, a companion and have companionship like you. If you think our daughter is happy with the life she has, we suggest that you change roles with our daughter. Go to Manzas and become a jihadist, dress in a military uniform, and live in the middle of the heat at the MEK military camp and pray for jihad against Iran. As a witness to this, convince Behzad Saffari to release our daughter and let her enjoy a free life like you do in Tirana.

Understandably, the MEK command will never allow such a thing. Behzad Saffari would not accept you as a jihadist in Manza, as you do not meet their standards.

We ask the Albanian authorities to secure the life of our daughter who is held hostage by MEK, as we know that if one day our daughter is at liberty, the MEK will do everything they can to ensure she does not live anymore.

Somayeh knows many secrets of the MEK. That is why she is kept in isolation at the Manzas jihadist camp.

But we her parents promise we will never stop our legal battle to liberate our daughter from the defunct MEK terrorist organization.

Gazeta Shqiptare, Tirana, Albania,

September 3, 2018 1 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

McCain’s Foreign Policy Record

Sen. John McCain died from brain cancer over the weekend:

John S. McCain, the proud naval aviator who climbed from depths of despair as a prisoner of war in Vietnam to pinnacles of power as a Republican congressman and senator from Arizona and a two-time contender for the presidency, died on Saturday at his home in Arizona. He was 81.

McCain served in Congress for more than thirty years. In that time, he went from the Vietnam veteran who warned against an unwise entanglement in Lebanon to becoming the most vocal and predictable advocate for every bad military intervention under the sun. The longer he stayed in Washington, the worse he became. His career is nothing if not a cautionary tale to other would-be legislators. He specialized in matters of national security and foreign policy, and yet he had a remarkable knack for misjudging practically every major foreign policy issue of the last three decades.

McCain distinguished himself as a consistent proponent of unnecessary foreign wars in the name of American “leadership,” and the country was always worse off when the president heeded his recommendations. He was a leading cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq and intervention in Libya, and he was wrong about both. He was also a Kosovo war supporter and has been a steadfast defender of U.S. support for the Saudi war on Yemen. When Georgia escalated a conflict with Russia, he insanely proclaimed, “We are all Georgians” and gave the impression that he was willing to risk WWIII over a dispute that had nothing to do with us. Despite his constant demands for more “action,” the U.S. did not intervene in Syria as forcefully or as soon as he wanted. He was even once quoted praising the Saudis for their role in Syria. “Thank God for the Saudis,” he said. He was famously hawkish on Iran (“bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran,” he sang), and in recent years went so far as to jump on the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) bandwagon. This is a record of horrible judgment and even more horrible costs for the people in the countries affected by the policies he supported.

If McCain had his way, the U.S. would have been in even more wars for much longer than we already were, and even his admirers can’t deny that. For the last twenty years of his political career, McCain was an irrepressible champion of reckless U.S. meddling around the world. It was an enormous stroke of good fortune for the U.S. and the world that his 2008 presidential bid failed. If you believe that U.S. foreign policy is far too militarized, overreaching, and destructive, McCain did a great deal to make and keep it that way.

The one big thing that McCain got right in his Senate career was his opposition to torture. Because he had suffered from the use of torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he understandably had no patience for the euphemisms and rationalizations of his pro-torture colleagues. This was the most significant disagreement he had with his party, and in the end it is probably the only issue where his willingness to break with his party from time to time really mattered. McCain had the ability to put principle ahead of party on occasion. Unfortunately, he did not do so all that often, and when it came to foreign policy the principles he followed were usually very bad ones.

By Daniel Larison

September 2, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Albanian media Shqiptarja.com publishes Somayeh Mohammadi’s story

The following post republishes the story of Mostafa Mohammadi’s quest to free his daughter from the hands of MEK. The series of articles, originally published in 2006 by Stewart Bell in National Post, has now been translated into Albanian and published by one of the country’s leading newspapers, Shqiptarja.com. In 2006, MEK accused Stewart Bell of being ‘an agent of the Iranian regime’.

Somayeh Mohammadi

This summer, 2018, Mostafa travelled to Albania in another attempt to meet with his daughter away from MEK control. MEK responded aggressively, accusing Mostafa and his wife of being ‘agents of the Iranian regime’. MEK has also accused Albanian journalists, a Channel 4 film crew from the UK and another British journalist with The Guardian, of being ‘agents of the Iranian regime’. However, at no time did MEK allow Somayeh Mohammadi to leave the camp to meet independently with her family or anyone else. This has scandalized Albanian public opinion.

Following this is a document in Farsi giving background to this story, including hand written letters by Somayeh Mohammadi to her family and the Canadian authorities, asking for help to be brought out of the MEK camp in Iraq and taken to Canada. The post includes family photographs.

—

Children Of ‘The Resistance’

September 1, 2018 0 comments

Missions of Nejat Society

False Flag Op In Albania Would Drive A Wedge Between The EU And Iran

President Trump’s floundering Iran policy was firmed up earlier this month when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a new ‘Iran Action Group’. According to Pompeo, “The Iran Action Group will be responsible [for] directing, reviewing, and coordinating all aspects of the State Department’s Iran-related activity, and will report directly to me.”

As the name indicates, action rather than diplomacy now tops the State Department’s agenda toward Iran. Action that will surely include increased sanctions, economic warfare, cyber warfare, inciting protest, and very possibly support for terrorist groups. Not a new repertoire. But Iran has proven remarkably vigilant and resilient in withstanding all these pressures, fending off various terrorist groups on its borders, some cities, and even an attack on the Majlis (parliament). More recently, attempts to subverteconomic protests in the country have come to nothing. Other means are called for.

As America pressures the European Union to line up behind its sanctions regime and end trade with Iran, there are indications that this could open another front for confronting Iran. The question for America’s anti-Iran pundits currently is how to engineer distance between Europe and Iran. One way would be if it could be demonstrated that Iranian terrorism has reached Europe itself, a theme that Pompeo himself addresses at virtually every Iran-related opportunity.

While rational observers recognise that any such activity would be political suicide for Iran, we are clearly not living in rational times. There are signs that the groundwork for a covert false-flag operation have been in place for some time that would blame Iran for an atrocity conducted outside its borders.

Such a possibility was hinted at in June when an Iranian diplomat was arrested in Germany over an alleged bomb plot on the eve of President Rouhani’s visit. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted “how convenient.” Iran claimed that the Belgian couple found to be behind the fake plot were Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) activists. The target for the bombing was the MEK rally in Paris which would then presumably be blamed on Iran. How convenient indeed.

That the MEK is named in this way is no surprise. While other terrorist groups have been contained by Iran, MEK has proven tenacious, due in main to the support it receives from Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the U.S. This is also due to its cult conditions which enslave and brainwash its members. But the fact that MEK is now based in Albania, far away from Iran’s border, might have doomed the group to obscurity if MEK’s violent regime change agenda didn’t so closely coincide with the desires of hawks in the Trump administration.

Trump, deliberately or unwittingly, has surrounded himself with MEK supporters. John Bolton, National Security Advisor, is a long-time MEK advocate and Rudy Giuliani, currently tackling Trump’s legal problems, has regularly spoken at MEK rallies. Now with former CIA man Pompeo as Secretary of State and taking a hard-line regime-change stance in all but words, all that all that remains is for an action plan to be put in place.

It could be that this is already taking shape in Albania where the MEK has deliberately curated a false narrative through its own websites that Iran is sending agents to attack and kill its members. This narrative is then repeated as established fact by political supporters and paid advocates.

In July, Pompeo repeated ‘news’ of the alleged bomb plot and also referenced the MEK-manufactured allegation that two retired Iranian journalists had been sent by Iran to conduct terrorism against them in Albania. It was MEK itself that falsely tipped off police to arrest the two innocent men. Building on this, Raymond Tanter, part of a cabal of mostly ex-CIA and former military officials who advocate for MEK, inserted this false information into a long article promoting the group MEK as bringers of peace and democracy to Iran. Nothing could be further from the truth.

MEK has a long history of covert as well as overt activities aimed at regime change against Iran. Over the years, when events were blamed on Iran, MEK often insinuated itself in various ways—as it did, for instance, in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. After extensive investigation, the primary testimony implicating Iran’s leadership came from four high-ranking intelligence officers from MEK—specifically, Hadi Roshan Ravan, the chief witness who not coincidentally also served as the head of MEK intelligence. In 2013, Israel arrested a Swedish Iranian man, Ali Mansouri, who “confessed” to be spying for Iran in Tel Aviv. He turned out to be an MEK member. MEK’s role in publicizing intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program and alleged complicity with Israel in the murder of Iranian nuclear scientists is widely known. Whether or not MEK was directly involved in many of such activities or not, its propagandizing role is indisputable.

Since arriving in Albania between 2013 and 2016, MEK has already shown itself to be aggressive, criminal, and dangerous. Recently a scandal erupted after a British Channel 4 film crew, headed by prominent journalist Lindsey Hilsum, was assaulted by MEK operatives while filming outside the MEK’s closed camp in Manez, Albania. A few days later, Aaron Merat, a journalist with The Guardian, was also subjected to an assault by MEK operatives during his investigations. MEK accused them of being “agents of the Iranian regime.”

This news, shocking as it is, did not find an audience outside Albania. So far, so local. But it demonstrated the ease and impunity with which MEK uses violence when the outside world encroaches on its secrecy. Albanians were even more shocked that their security services tried to hide these events.

Interestingly the group’s self-portrayal of victimhood largely serves its own internal dynamics. MEK moved 2000+ members to a closed camp in Manez to prevent more members leaving the group. MEK leaders claim that Iran has sent various intelligence agents to Albania plot against them and kill them and the camp is their only protection. While this serves to frighten its own members and stiffen their thirty-year resolve to continue their struggle, it also fits the kind of false narrative that leads to the kind of false-flag operations that could be blamed on Iran.

Former CIA Director Pompeo’s Iran Action Group is a sub-group in the State Department answering only to him. This also favors the kind of covert operation with which the MEK is only too willing and able to engage. Worryingly, the attacks on foreign journalists could serve to escalate and accelerate secret plans already in place for a false-flag operation in Albania which would be blamed on Iran. The first victims would be MEK members. The next targets could be Albanian. And this time, in order to convince Europe that Iran is a dangerous sponsor of terrorism, people would die.

Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh,

September 1, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Who Will Stop Trump From Tweeting Us into War With Iran?

Donald Trump may be taking us to war on Iran and those who should be trying to stop him–from Congress to the grassroots–are too obsessed with Russia to even pay attention. Trump is well aware that a war with Iran would be a good diversion from his domestic and Russia travails, and could even help Republicans in the November elections. In 2012, when President Obama was down in the polls, Trump tweeted: “Looks like he’ll have to start a war or major conflict to win. Don’t put it past him!” So we certainly shouldn’t put it past Donald Trump.

On July 22, just after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had wrapped up a speech in which he compared Iran’s leaders to the Mafia, Trump sent out this threatening tweet, in all caps, to Iran’s President Rouhani.

“NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”

Trump’s twitter tirade was in response to comments by President Rouhani warning that a US war with Iran would be the “mother of all wars” and that Trump should not “play with the lion’s tail,” and earlier comments implying that if US sanctions stopped Iran from exporting oil, Iran could close down the Strait of Hormuz, a slender waterway at the mouth of the Gulf through which 20 percent of the world’s oil is shipped.

Trump’s explosive tweet was reminiscent of the “fire and fury” comments he directed toward Kim Jong Un before he started negotiating with the North Korean leader, but it’s unlikely that this twitterstorm will be the prelude to talks with Iran.

In the case of Korea, South Korea was pushing for talks and there was no significant US lobby trying stop them. With Iran, both Saudi Arabia and Israel have been trying to suck the US into their decades-old feud with Iran. They both opposed the Iran nuclear deal. Israel has been advocating for the US military to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, even though Israel has several hundred nuclear weapons of its own and Iran has none. Saudi Arabia insists that Iran is spreading terrorism throughout the region, even though the Saudis have spent billions of dollars spreading their intolerant version of Islam, Wahhabism. And let us not forget the terror of the Saudi bombing of Yemen, which has led to the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophe.

Lobby groups from AIPAC to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies have also been stoking the conflict. So has the dissident group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). The MEK, a cult-like group that has killed Iranians and Americans alike and was on the US terrorist list until 2012, is hated inside Iran for having sided with Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran in 1980. In recent years, the MEK has spent lavishly (with what is rumored to be Saudi money) to acquire political support from liberals like Howard Dean to conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, both of whom were key speakers at the group’s May gathering in Paris. But the MEK’s most influential cheerleader is John Bolton, who has spoken at their meetings eight times, for which he was well compensated. Bolton considers the MEK a legitimate opposition movement even though they have absolutely no base of support inside Iran.

Trump delighted this dangerous melange of Iran opponents by withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal on May 8th, despite Iran’s compliance with its side of the bargain, as continuously certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In defiance of the deal’s five cosponsors—Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia—the Trump administration unilaterally restored sanctions, which will go into effect in two waves during August and November. The devastating sanctions not only prohibit US companies from doing business in Iran, but will also punish foreign companies and banks. Despite efforts by European governments to shield their companies, the companies themselves–from oil giant Total to airplane manufacturer Airbus—do not want to take the risk and are already pulling the plug on trade deals they had negotiated with Iran. The value of the rial has plummeted this year by forty per cent. With the economy reeling from sanctions and the threat of war, along with mismanagement and corruption, Iranians have taken to the streets in protest.

The Administration’s goal now is to cut off the Islamic Republic’s ability to export oil, its prime source of revenue and foreign exchange. These particularly crippling sanctions will go into effect on November 4th.

The Trump Administration believes that its policy of choking Tehran economically and supporting internal dissent can topple the government. “We are now very realistic in being able to see an end of the regime in Iran. The collapse of the Islamic Republic of Iran is around the corner,” Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani shouted triumphantly to the cheering crowd at the June 2018 gathering of the MEK’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

An overthrow of the regime, with no entity ready to take over, would not only lead to chaos internally but could quickly spread throughout the region. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its allies, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, are ready to attack both Israel and US troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and on the myriad of military bases surrounding Iran. The Iranian government has already threatened to block oil shipments, a move that could rock the entire global economy.

Many Iranians we talk to desperately want to change their government, but not with US intervention. They look around the region in horror, seeing how US militarism has contributed to massive chaos, misery, and death in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Palestine. They believe their best option is internal reform.

As a group of prominent Iranian-Americans stated in an open letter to Secretary Pompeo, “If you truly wish to help the people of Iran, lift the travel ban [although no Iranian has ever been involved in a terrorist attack on US soil, Iran is included in Trump’s Muslim ban], adhere to the Iran nuclear deal and provide the people of Iran the economic relief they were promised and have eagerly awaited for three years. Those measures, more than anything, will provide the Iranian people with the breathing space to do what only they can do – push Iran towards democracy through a gradual process that achieves the benefits of freedom and liberty without turning Iran into another Iraq or Syria.”

Before all hell breaks loose with the Trump wrecking crew taking us into a cataclysmic conflict with Iran, Congress and the American public better get their heads out of the Russiagate sand and rush to stop them.

by Medea Benjamin , counterpunch.org

Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK and the human right organization Global Exchange. Follow her on twitter at @MedeaBenjamin

August 29, 2018 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Rajavi plays the role of Shaban Jafari in ‘Action Group”

Earlier this month the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the creation of the Iran Action Group (IAG), whose stated goal is to”change the Iranian regime’s behaviour”. In response, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, said that any US effort to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran was bound to fail, just days after the announcement. [1]
Zarif made the comments in a Twitter post on Sunday, on the anniversary of a US-backed coup that toppled Iran’s first democratically elected government in 1953. [2]
“65 years ago today, the US overthrew the popularly elected democratic government of Dr. Mossadegh, restoring the dictatorship and subjugating Iranians for the next 25 years,”Zarif said.”Now an ‘Action Group’ dreams of doing the same through pressure, misinformation &demagoguery. Never again.”[3]
In fact, several high profiles in the US administration have close ties with the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ the Cult of Rajavi) and so determined to the overthrow of the Iranian Government. Caitlin Johnstone of the medium writes about John Bolton’s aggressive advocacy for the MKO, “One year ago, the actual, literal psychopath who would soon be named Trump’s National Security Advisor appeared at an MEK rally and declared that the cult was a “a viable opposition to the rule of the ayatollahs.” [4]
“I had said for over 10 years since coming to these events, that the declared policy of the United States of America should be the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran,” Bolton proclaimed. “The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change, and therefore the only solution is to change the regime itself. And that’s why, before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran!” [5]
Johnstone states that Bolton’s sentiments were echoed with remarkable similarity by Trump’s lawyer Rudolph Giuliani at the MKO’s annual gathering in July. “The mullahs must go, the ayatollah must go, and they must be replaced by a democratic government which Madam Rajavi represents,” Giuliani said in reference to MEK cult leader Maryam Rajavi, adding, “Freedom is right around the corner … Next year I want to have this convention in Tehran!” [6]

Thus, it seems that Javad Zarif is right. The US behavior has not changed since the 1953 coup. At the time, the CIA tried to get mobsters hired and paid them good money. Shaban Jafari aka “Brainless” was a violent street thug who became a trusted henchman of the Shah. He was one of the leading mobsters who got his share of money for street actions and slogans against Mossadegh. [7]

Today, Maryam Rajavi sounds to be the modern version of Shaban Jafary and his gang. Moreover, the MKO has absolutely more potentials to instigate riots and violence that Shaban jafari did.

The MKO’s record of violent acts includes the entire range of violence from street clashes using knives, brass knuckles, and different weapons including bullets and tanks to suppress people.Listing the numerous terrorist acts of the MKO, the freelance journalist, Ivan Kesic asserts that the MKO is worse than ISIS and it has had more victims than the ISIS has. His recent article on the American Herald Tribune recounts the MKO’s role in the genocide of Iraqi Kurds, the group’s campaign of bombing against the Iranian civilians and government officials as well as the assassination of the US nationals working in Iran during the 1970s. [8]

However, the most investigated part of his article describes the MKO’s simultaneous attacks against the Iranian diplomatic interests in 13 countries in 1992. The move indicates the MKO’s motivation and potential to bully whenever it wants. Ivan Kesic writes:

“In April 1992, they invaded Iranian diplomatic missions in thirteen Northern American and Western European countries, seizing hostages and wrecking offices in a wave of coordinated attacks. In New York, five men armed with knives invaded the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, took three hostages, smashed furniture and computers in a two-hour rampage behind chained doors. Two of the hostages escaped when the police broke through a back door, and the third was released unharmed when the intruders surrendered to police negotiators. In Ottawa, Iran’s Embassy was attacked and pillaged by about 35people armed with sticks and hammers. And in Europe, the MEK members stormed Iranian embassies and consulates in Bonn, Hamburg, The Hague, Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bern, Paris and London. Scores of demonstrators were arrested, and many of the Iranian missions were extensively damaged, some by firebombs. There were many injuries in clashes that erupted, but luckily no deaths.

“In Germany, several police officers were hurt as the authorities struggled to arrest about 50 members who occupied the seven-story Iranian Embassy in Bonn for two hours. The angry mob hurled official papers and furniture from the windows during the rampage. The Iranian Consulate in Hamburg also was besieged with demonstrators hurling rocks and firebombs. About 20 protesters were arrested, and four people were treated for smoke inhalation and shock. They also broke into Iran’s Embassy in The Hague after a car rammed through the compound’s gate. Protesters armed with metal bars and sticks rushed through, entered the building and caused extensive damage. In Stockholm, 50 MEK members set two Iranian Embassy buildings and six cars on fire. The Ambassador’s wife and two children were treated for shock, and one embassy employee suffered burns. One embassy employee was injured as invaders ransacked the Iranian Embassy in Oslo, and several others in the embassy in Copenhagen where MEK members smashed windows. They also hurled rocks, smashed windows and tore down the Iranian flag at the embassy in London, and a firebomb was later thrown at the London offices of Iran Air, causing damage but no injuries. Later in the 1990s, Iranian diplomats were also attacked in Denmark, Austria, and Italy. Western diplomats were also targeted; in August 2003 MEK bombed the United Nations compound in Iraq, prompting UN withdrawal from the country.” [9]

Maryam Rajavi was once Saddam’s operative tool to suppress Iraqi uprisings. Her notorious command at the time –“Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”—has been widely recalled by defectors of the group. And, regarding the role of the MKO agents in the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientists under the command of the Israeli Mossad, their leader is definitely capable of being a much more aggressive and violent CIA agent than Shaban Jafary was.
Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] Aljazeera, ‘Never again’: Zarif calls US group coup attempt bound to fail, August 19, 2018

[2] ibid

[3] ibid

[4] Johnstone, Caitlin, That Time Hillary Clinton Removed John Bolton’s Favorite Terror Cult from the Terrorist List, The Medium, July 3, 2018

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7]Keyoush, Banafsheh, Saudi Arabian and Iran: Friends or foes?, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, p. 69.

[8] Kesic, Ivan, Worse than ISIL: The Dark Past of Mujahedin-e Khalq Terrorist Group, The American Herald Tribune, June 30, 2018

[9] ibid

August 28, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Mojahed’s parents: The girl is forcibly held in the camp, she knows many MEK secrets,

According to the parents, the Mojahedin command is afraid to let the girl go free as she knows ‘many secrets of rape and crimes that the former MEK terrorist organization has committed against its members’.

Editorial

TIRANA – Following the interview with Somayeh Mohammadi, a member of the Iranian resistance MEK in Albania, with the head of the Albanian-Mojahedin Friendship Association, Namik Kopliku, which was broadcast by Report TV, the girl’s parents reacted again asking the latter help to intervene to release the girl. They say in a letter that MEK keeps its members as slaves, and that their daughter has given the interview under pressure and threats. According to them, the Mojahedin command is afraid to let the girl go free as she knows ‘many secrets of rape and crimes that the former MEK terrorist organization has committed against its members’.

‘Please ask the Mujahideen leaders to let our free girl. We want to get our daughter out of the Manzas jihad camp where the Mojahedin live as modern slaves or prisoners who are waiting for the moment when Maryam Rajavi orders them to march and do jihad against Iran. For this reason, we are publicly asking you to use the access you have to the Mojahedin terrorist organization and to help us meet our daughter”, says the letter among other things.

In an interview published by Report TV, the 38-year-old explains her 15-year history and says that she is willing to stay with MEK and would not hesitate to leave if she decided to one day. The 38-year-old’s father appealed to Albanian institutions, denouncing her kidnapping by MEK, while his daughter says her father is lying.

FULL LETTER

Mr. Namik Kopliku, release our daughter from the MEK organization

Mr. Namik Kopliku, as Somayeh’s parents, we saw your interview in the Albanian newspaper where you uploaded the video of August 3 you made with our daughter at the Mojahedin’s Manzas camp. The video broadcast in Albania gives some excerpts of the interview that you and your wife, in the presence of 3 Mojahedin commanders, have made with our daughter. The interview with our daughter came after a few days of intimidation and coercion that the Mojahedin command made against daughter, who then asked her to come before you and say she will not meet her parents, as the Mojahedin command tells her that her family are enemies and agents of Iran.

In your TV Report interview you protect the totalitarian Mojahedin group which you treat as Democrats. As a former Mojahedin member, I declare that the Mojahedin are a totalitarian Stalinist cult that does not accept democracy, does not allow democratic elections, keeps its members isolated, radicalizes them with the crazy idea that Maryam Rajavi is a holy saint who will one day liberate Iran, killing the mullahs, destroying mosques, and building a utopian Stalinist regime with Maryam Rajavi as Supreme Leader. This group, which has been in Albania for three years, is still in a state of war. It does not accept any de-radicalization program from the Albanian government or other organs, and these refugees refuse to integrate into Albanian society and obey Albanian laws.

Many deserters who have abandoned the Mojahedin organization and live in Tirana talk and tell how in the MEK camp the military command keeps its members as slaves. They seized their ID documents, passports, and did not provide them with travel documents, a fact that classifies this organization as an organization practicing modern slavery. MEK does not allow its members to watch TV, have phones, use the Internet, talk to their families, marry, have sex, have a baby, talk to friends, and live a free and civil life. The Mojahedin, a term in the Arabic-language, is jihadist, indoctrinated to fight and die in the war against Iran, to place Massoud and Maryam Rajavi as Iran’s supreme dictators. MEK is a terrorist organization which has killed many citizens in Iran and Iraq. MEK does not believe in democracy but in establishing a totalitarian order similar to that of Pol Pot or the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Even you accept in your interview that the MEK in the Manzes paramilitary camp indoctrinates its soldiers with the idea of jihad against Iran. These facts, which go against Albanian law, and articles 231 and 265 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Albania, are classified as acts, invitations and incitement to terrorism, which are punishable in Albania. The whole activity of this organization with its military laws and totalitarian rules in contradiction with Albanian laws, makes this an anti-constitutional and reprehensible organization under Albanian laws and the international conventions that Albania is party to. But as you acknowledge in your interview, the MEK today, like Al-Qaida and the Taliban, is backed by US officials and therefore they are not persecuted under the law.

Mr Koplik,

Mojahedin witnesses inside the Manza camp have informed me that my daughter’s interview with you was made under pressure from the Mojahedin commanders, who do not allow my daughter to leave the camp in any way and meet with us, her parents. The Mojahedin command is afraid that if our daughter meets with us and is allowed to leave the camp where she is held hostage, she will abandon jihad and join her family in Canada. Somayeh’s friends who have left MEK and have now reached Germany, Greece and the US tell us that Somayeh is desperate and would join her family. But the Mojahedin commanders frighten her, they tell her that if she leaves the camp Iranian agents will kill her, and that her father is an agent of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry and that I’ll take her as a slave for Tehran’s mullahs.

The MEK, without any facts, slanders and publicly accuses me and my family and my supporters, but even if their accusations were true, these do not deprive us of the right to parent [our daughter]. MEK has launched a demonizing campaign against me, Albanian and foreign journalists, various advocates and analysts who support me. I believe you have also seen how Mojahed Humayun Deyim and seven other Mojahedin beat me up in Tirana on July 27, 2018 and then how 50 Mojahedin under the leadership of the commanders Behzad Saffari, Jila Deyhim and Ahmad Taba surrounded police station no. 4 in Tirana, putting pressure on our police and attorneys to free the jihadi fighters.

You can see from their actions that the Mojahedin do not understand and disagrees with freedom of the media, freedom of the individual, democracy, free speech, and the rule of democracy and law. They say you are with us or with Iran. They say you must do jihad with us, or you are with the mullahs of Tehran. They do not accept a world free and without war.

However, we are the parents of Somayeh who are in Tirana, and in these weeks we have faced slander as Iranian agents, beatings by Mojahedin and threats of all sorts, we ask you to honor us. Please ask for the Mojahedin leaders to let our daughter leave freely. We want to get our daughter out of the Manzas jihad camp where the Mojahedin live as modern slaves or prisoners who are waiting for the moment when Maryam Rajavi orders them to march and do jihad in Iran.

We do not want our daughter to go to jihad in Iran and be sacrificed for Maryam Rajavi, who wants to forcibly overthrow the Iranian government, because we believe in democracy, peace, and we do not accept war, violence, and jihad. Participating in jihadist conflicts is a crime in both Albania and Canada. We do not want our daughter to be involved in a terrorist organization, we want her to be a law-abiding citizen. We want our daughter to be released from prison where she is held by the Mojahedin. Initially, we want her to come to Tirana and meet with us without the presence and threats of the Mojahedin commanders. Then, if she wants, we want her to live freely in Albania, to marry, have a family, to work, to abandon jihadi activities, and live as a free citizen. But if she wants to join our family in Canada, we will take her with pleasure to our country. We want to encourage our daughter to leave as soon as possible the Mojahedin terrorist organization and the military camp where she has been held hostage for 21 years.

We will not stop our daughter at any time from doing political activity. If she thinks with her own free will that she supports the MEK, we will not stop her. But what we want is for you to communicate to the Mojahedin command to allow us to meet our daughter. Just as you would never accept that MEK kidnap your daughter and rape your boy, you should understand that this is our view too.

For this reason, we ask you publicly to use the access you have to the Mojahedin terrorist organization and help us meet our daughter. Our daughter does not need humanitarian accommodation in Albania as her family homeland Canada is a safe country. So, she has no reason to stay locked inside the Mojahedin’s Manzas jail to await the day when Maryam Rajavi dispatches her to do jihad against Iran.

Please help us.

Somayeh’s parents,

Mostafa Mohammadi and Mahbube Hamza

d.ba./b.ha.

Shqiptarja.com, Tirana, Albania, Translated by Iran Interlink

August 26, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

The Dark Past of Mujahedin-e Khalq Terrorist Group

With the rise of ISIL activities in Syria and Iraq during the mid-2010s, the simplistic story about”the worst terrorist organization ever”emerged in the mainstream media. However, how accurate is that? Taking into consideration today’s active organizations, their crimes and massacres, number of victims and the operational coverage, we can freely say that ISIL is far from being the worst terrorist group in history. It’s not highly popular Al-Qaeda either, notorious Boko Haram in Africa, or any similar group which received widespread media coverage in the recent years. In accordance with the above mentioned parameters, the infamous”winner”in this category is unquestionably Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK or MKO). Led by Masoud and Maryam Rajavi (husband and wife), it is known by several other different names and acronyms, including People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI), National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA), and National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). This organization was founded in the 1960s by a group of Iranian leftists opposed to the country’s pro-Western ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and later developed into the largest and most militant group opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the group was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Iraq in its eight-year war against Khomeini’s Iran. In 1986, MEK moved its headquarters to Iraq where it received its primary support to attack the targets in Iran. The organization is designated as a terrorist organization by Iran and Iraq, and was officially considered a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United States and Canada until 2008–2012 period, when the MEK’s long-term lobbying efforts finally gave results. In 2016, the MEK headquarters have been relocated from former US military base Camp Liberty in Iraq to Albania.

Terrorist attacks against civilians

According to the latest estimates, around 14,000 Iraqi and Syrian civilians have been killed by the ISIL terrorist attacks, followed by several thousand people killed by Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram. Precise figures are difficult to determine because all the groups are involved in armed conflicts, and its not easy to distinguish a victim of war crime and a victim of terrorism. Nevertheless, based on the facts and figures, due to the terrorist attacks committed by the Mujahedin-e Khalq more than 16,000 people have been killed in Iran alone, not counting their atrocities against Iranian and Iraqi civilians during the Iran-Iraq war and the 1991 uprisings in Iraq. Their tactics included bomb attacks, targeted assassinations, aircraft hijackings, and so on. Only from 26 August 1981 to December 1982, the MEK conducted 336 terrorist attacks against targets in Iran. The organization initially tried to make their own social and political space inside Iran, and because it failed to bring any success in this work, they changed the orientation to the terrorist acts against Iran’s head of state. The explosion at the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party and death of Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, the head of the Supreme Court with 72 members of the party, including 14 ministers and 27 MPs, the killing of President Mohammad Ali Rajai and Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar, are some parts of the terrorist activities of the organization.

Terrorism against Western targets

Mujahedin-e Khalq has also conducted attacks against numerous Western targets, both in Europe, North America and elsewhere. In the early 1970s, MEK members killed several US soldiers and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran. Such victims included US Army Lt. Col. Lewis L. Hawkins who was assassinated in June 1973, US Army officers Col. Paul Shaffer and Lt. Col. Jack Turner killed in May 1975, an Iranian employee at the US Embassy in Tehran two months later, and US civilian contractors Robert R. Krongrad, William C. Cottrell Jr. and Donald G. Smith assassinated by four gunmen in August 1976. Furthermore, in May 1972 US Air Force General Harold L. Price was seriously wounded in attempted assassination. Several hours later, the MEK had a plan to assassinate US President Richard Nixon and they blasted a bomb at mausoleum where Nixon was scheduled to attend a ceremony just 45 minutes after the explosion. In November 1970, a failed attempt was made to kidnap the US Ambassador to Iran, Douglas MacArthur II. MEK gunmen ambushed MacArthur’s limousine while he and his wife were en route their house. Shots were fired at the vehicle and a hatchet was hurled through the rear window, however, MacArthur remained unharmed. During the same period, MEK operatives also committed bombing of facilities of Pan-Am Airlines, Pan-American Oil, Shell Oil, and of gates of British Embassy.

The MEK has used a car bomb in July 1987 plot against an Iranian diplomat who survived terrorist attack in Madrid, as well as an injured bystander. In April 1992, they invaded Iranian diplomatic missions in thirteen Northern American and Western European countries, seizing hostages and wrecking offices in a wave of coordinated attacks. In New York, five men armed with knives invaded the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, took three hostages, smashed furniture and computers in a two-hour rampage behind chained doors. Two of the hostages escaped when the police broke through a back door, and the third was released unharmed when the intruders surrendered to police negotiators. In Ottawa, Iran’s Embassy was attacked and pillaged by about 35 people armed with sticks and hammers. And in Europe, the MEK members stormed Iranian embassies and consulates in Bonn, Hamburg, The Hague, Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bern, Paris and London. Scores of demonstrators were arrested, and many of the Iranian missions were extensively damaged, some by firebombs. There were many injuries in clashes that erupted, but luckily no deaths.

In Germany, several police officers were hurt as the authorities struggled to arrest about 50 members who occupied the seven-story Iranian Embassy in Bonn for two hours. The angry mob hurled official papers and furniture from the windows during the rampage. The Iranian Consulate in Hamburg also was besieged with demonstrators hurling rocks and firebombs. About 20 protesters were arrested, and four people were treated for smoke inhalation and shock. They also broke into Iran’s Embassy in The Hague after a car rammed through the compound’s gate. Protesters armed with metal bars and sticks rushed through, entered the building and caused extensive damage. In Stockholm, 50 MEK members set two Iranian Embassy buildings and six cars on fire. The Ambassador’s wife and two children were treated for shock, and one embassy employee suffered burns. One embassy employee was injured as invaders ransacked the Iranian Embassy in Oslo, and several others in the embassy in Copenhagen where MEK members smashed windows. They also hurled rocks, smashed windows and tore down the Iranian flag at the embassy in London, and a firebomb was later thrown at the London offices of Iran Air, causing damage but no injuries. Later in the 1990s, Iranian diplomats were also attacked in Denmark, Austria, and Italy. Western diplomats were also targeted; in August 2003 MEK bombed the United Nations compound in Iraq, prompting UN withdrawal from the country.

Participation in the genocide

Following the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980, the Mujahedin-e Khalq described Saddam Hussein an aggressor and a dictator, but after he offered them an alliance the MEK transferred its headquarters to Iraq and sided with Saddam against the Iranian Armed Forces in the Iran–Iraq War. Their decision was viewed as treason by the vast majority of Iranians and it destroyed the MEK’s appeal in its homeland. The organization gained a new life in exile, started calling itself the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and continued to conduct violent attacks in Iran. Near the end of war, a military force of 7,000 members of the MEK, armed and equipped by Saddam’s Iraq, went into action. During the war and later in the 1991 uprisings in Iraq, the Mujahedin-e Khalq assisted Iraqi Ba’athist government in a series of systematic attacks against the Kurdish fighters (Iran’s allies) in northern Iraq. The result of their action was a genocide that killed between around 100,000 Kurdish civilians. Former Mujahedin members remember Maryam Rajavi’s infamous command at the time:”Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”Regardless of their share in a committed genocide, it is higher than all the Daesh’s massacres committed against Yazidis, Christians, and Shias combined.

BY Ivan Kesić, ahtribune.com

August 25, 2018 0 comments

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