Articles

Save Enslaved MKO Members

Those lobbying to return MKO members to Ashraf are building the altar to scarify them

It is no more the question of keeping forces on alert near the Iranian borders looking for an opportunity to strike at the pillars of the regime to inherit the reins of power after its fall. Rather, it is a desperate need to protect very same disarmed forces against any attack that threaten their life just in the middle of Iraq. The members of MKO deserved any form of confrontation when they were fully armed with Saddam’s donated weapons to be used against Iranian and Iraqi people. Now the deplorable condition of these poor men, the outcasts of a failed militia with a countless record of bloodshed, call for a universal decisiveness to save them, now wallowed in the mire of a personality cult.

The UN special envoy to Iraq, Martin Kobler, knows well, if not better than anybody, what is going on within Camp Liberty, the temporary camp that houses these people, when he expressed concern at human rights abuses therein. In his latest remarks, Mr. Kobler cited reports from some residents that camp leaders are keeping residents from leaving, from participating in the resettlement process, from contacting family members outside Iraq, and from medical treatment.

And what is the response by the group’s leaders to end the sufferings of the members? We witness everyday protests and demonstrations by sympathizers and supporters of MKO outside UN headquarters and on the streets of the European countries calling for the protection and guaranteed rights of the residents as well as condemning Mr. Kobler. In her recent attack, Maryam Rajavi, the self-appointed president elect of the group, strongly condemned Kobler for what she referred to as deceitful efforts to present false reports to the Security Council and the UN Secretary-General.

The heavy propaganda and lobbying struggle by MKO’s widespread network in European countries demanding to return Camp Liberty residents to their previous camp, Camp Ashraf, is no more considered a humanitarian gesture to save suffering members. Everybody knows that Camp Ashraf does not qualify a more secure place than Liberty. The number of the insiders killed in Camp Ashraf when MKO’s leaders deliberately provoked a few confrontations with Iraqi forces, many of whom were happy to avenge the ethnic cleansing raids the group carried out for Saddam back in the day, exceeds those killed in Camp Liberty’s mortar attacks. Mr. Kobler had also provided a warning of the group’s potentiality in provoking and waging violence at the time.

Is Camp Ashraf really a sanctuary and does MKO care about the safety and protection of the abandoned insiders in Iraq? The first reaction the Iraqi Government received from MKO after announcing its decision to close Camp Ashraf in a decision to expel its residents from the country was an angry backlash and threatening tone. And the first practical approach by MKO was to provoke the Iraqi forces, not acquainted with the group’s self-destructive tactics, to mount an aggressive response to evacuation of Ashraf. Then, anyone can say what would be the fate of the insiders if they were ever permitted to return to Camp Ashraf.

MKO is at the end of line in Iraq and it has enough devoted members active under a pro-democracy masquerade around the world. But MKO is facing a conundrum over the insiders’ future uncertainty in Iraq, a big bulk of members still waiting to be accepted as refugees in third countries. The problem can be solved in the way that would best benefit MKO. What the group needs at the present to fuel its propaganda machine for a full move is sacrifice. Where else can MKO leaders find a better slaughter house than Camp Ashraf to make about 3000 martyrs? In fact, those lobbying to return members to Ashraf are building the altar for MKO to scarify poor insiders.

July 24, 2013 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

The Future of a Terrorist Bastion

The military and cult bastion of the terrorist MKO is nearing the end of its days as one of the most controversial spots in Iraq. The last remaining group of the members, a total of 100, will be forced out sooner or later and leaves the camp in the hands of the local authority in Diyala Province. The province’s administration has unveiled a recent judicial decision by Baghdad courts to empty Camp Ashraf and hand it over to the local administration who have announced on several occasions the intention to turn it into a tourist attraction and a large commercial exchange center between the Kurdistan region of Iraq and Baghdad.

In a latest press conference, Uday AlKhadran, Khalis Mayor, told that an Iraqi court has transferred the authority of the site to the local administration of Khalis which plans to build a mall in there once all MKO terrorists are expelled from the Camp.

“The Camp of New Iraq (Ashraf) still accommodates 100 members of the MKO members, and the rest have already been transferred at the order of the UN to the transient facility in Camp Liberty in Northern Baghdad during the last year in preparation for housing them in other countries”. He further pointed to “the suspicious political activities of Ashraf residents who refused to sell the property of Camp Ashraf in accordance with their earlier agreement with the Iraqi government, despite receiving attractive offers from Iraqi and foreign traders and companies”.

It has to be pointed out that not all the claimed properties and assets in Camp Ashraf have a function of legal and civil purpose and many of the vehicles, instruments and machineries allocated to the group by the ousted dictator belong to Iraqi army and people living in the vicinity. In fact, the group brought nothing when it came to Iraq and all it claims to possess is out of the bundles of dollars Saddam allocated to it from the pocket of the Iraqi people when they needed the sums more than any other time.

Since the fall of Saddam, the Iraqi lawyers have filed complaints on behalf of Iraqi people and particularly by farmers living in Diyala province whose crop lands have been occupied by the group. In fact, the closure of Camp Ashraf was a legal demand by the Iraqi government and the local people, to whom the lands belong. Naturally, MKO as the occupier is reluctant to return what it had seized under the direct order of the ousted Saddam.

July 23, 2013 0 comments

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 12

Iran’s election a setback for Washington’s anti-Iran lobby as Mojahedin Khalq goes into a tailspin

++ Quite a few articles have been published in various Farsi sites responding to the MEK’s toadying to the Americans. Many have published documents from the start of the revolution which show that the Mojahedin Khalq were more Anti-Imperialist than the Islamic forces which came to power. The MEK criticised Khomeini and his followers for not killing the American embassy hostages. The documents include letters to the government calling for their execution and praising themselves for killing American servicemen before the revolution. Massoud Rajavi’s MEK said “Let’s make another Vietnam for the Americans”.

++ While western media and political circles ignored the MEK’s latest claim to new ‘nuclear revelations’, this provoked several articles in Farsi. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, in answer to a journalist’s question, dismissed the claim as unworthy of notice or answer. Ironically, many Iranian opposition figures have condemned Rajavi and the MEK for being played with in the hands of the Israelis rather than being an Iranian opposition. Many have suggested that this shows the desperation and panic of the MEK and the neoconservatives following the election result in Iran.

++ Letters have been written by various Associations to the Albanian Prime Minister thanking the country and asking Albania to give enough help to the people from Iraq and not leave them to the mercy of the MEK leaders. Many have referred to the agents of the MEK being sent from Paris to try to bully them into not speaking out about the MEK.

++ The Mojahedin Khalq continues to swear at Iraj Mesdaghi, Dr Ghassim, Rowhani and Yaghmai. Many commentators have again noted that continuation of this kind of character assassination does not work outside the MEK, but then again they are not doing it for this reason, but to keep the people inside afraid of leaving or speaking out.

++ Mehdi Khoshhaal was the guest of Mardom TV this week. He discussed the forced marriages, forced divorces and the forced separation of children in the MEK, and went into detail over some of the suspicious disappearances and deaths that have occurred over the years inside the MEK. He also talked about some of the people he knows who are still in Camp Liberty.

++ Karim Ghassim published an article in Pejvak Iran directly addressing Mehdi Sameh – who is still in the NCRI. Ghassim criticises him for blatantly lying about things. He specifically tells him that ‘we did not change sides as you try to imply, it is you and your masters who have changed sides’.

++ There have been quite a few reports in the Albanian media, including TV reports, on the arrivals from Camp Liberty some of which have been translated into Farsi. The arrivals are now living in a refugee camp alongside more refugees from other countries.

++ In a media interview, the ex-minister of national security of Iraq, Shervan Vaa’eli, said that Iraq has clear evidence that the MEK have close contact and cooperation with Al Qaida Iraq.

++ Faazel Mirani, Head of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iraq, which is affiliated to Massoud Barezani, announced to the media this week that the regional government of Arbil fully supports the central government of Iraq’s aim to expel the MEK as soon as possible. He went on to say that deleting them from the list of terrorism in America does not mean that the people of Kurdistan would ever forget their suffering at MEK hands under the regime of Saddam Hussein.

++ In addition to articles in English there have been many articles and comments about paid MEK advocate Bob Filner as someone not only anti -Iranian but also anti-women as he admitted sexually harassing several women of his acquaintance.

++ Mohammad Karami has published the second part of his ongoing articles about mysterious and suspicious deaths in the MEK. This week he talks about Mojtabah Mir Miraan, a poet who wrote under the pen name M. Baaroon. Karami explains what led up to the MEK announcing that he had killed himself. He explains the things the MEK did to him so that it resulted in him killing himself or (possibly) being killed by the MEK.

++ This week the fifth group of Camp Liberty refugees arrived in Albania. The group comprised 14 people, three of whom are notorious high ranking commanders, Hooshang Doodkhani, Afshin Ebrahimi and Akbar Chavoshi. Mohammad Karami questions, when there are so many needy and desperate people left in Camp Liberty, why, we wonder, does the MEK need torturers in Albania?

++ Nima Mihandoost’s article in Nim Negah website exposes another way the MEK have attacked Iraj Mesdaghi. The MEK published a three line paragraph followed by 255 signatures of people supposedly in prison in Iran during the 1980s. Mihandoost points out that the MEK claims that although Mesdaghi was a prisoner at this time, because all these 255 people were also in prison and all agree, then logically Mesdaghi doesn’t have the right to question the MEK over human rights abuses in Iraq.

++ Ali Keshgar, a famous Iranian opposition personality, published an article titled ‘Collaboration with invaders does not qualify as political activity’. He mentions the MEK and their mercenary role for the Israeli lobby and Americans. He goes on to say that the people who get paid by the MEK to speak in Paris are the same people who get paid from the other side to say that Israel and America should attack Iran right now.

++ UNAMI chief Martin Kobler used an outgoing speech at the UN to expose concerns about human rights abuses inside the MEK. Kobler told the Security Council that the United Nations had received complaints about the Iranian group’s leadership at the camp.

“Of increasing concern are the human rights abuses in Camp Hurriya itself by the camp leadership,” Kobler said. “Hundreds of daily monitoring reports suggest that the lives of Camp Hurriya members are tightly controlled.”

“A significant number of residents have reported to U.N. monitors that they are not free to leave the camp, to participate in the resettlement process offered by UNHCR, to contact family members outside Iraq, or to have contact with other relatives even within the camp itself,” he said, referring to the U.N. refugee agency.

Some Hurriya residents reported being denied access to medical treatment by camp leaders, while others spoke of verbal and other forms of abuse for disagreeing with camp leaders or voicing the desire to leave, Kobler said.

++ Mohammad Ali Esfahani another prominent Iranian opposition figure wrote an article also criticising the MEK for bringing the likes of John Bolton to talk in their favour since Bolton then leaves their ceremony and goes to the most right wing Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, to announce that Israel should have bombed Iran ‘yesterday’. Esfahani refers to Giuliani as another MEK paid figure working for the Zionists and mentions a few American retired military who he describes as the murders of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.

++Aryia Iran has collated reports in the Albanian media concerning the arrival of the refugees. Aryia Iran’s representative spoke with several reporters and made his own investigations. According to this report the Albanian interior ministry has said 109 have now been transferred to the refugee camp in Tirana.

++ Daniel Larison, writing in The American Conservative, criticises those who accept money to lobby for the MEK. “When the MEK was originally designated as a terrorist organization, that wasn’t wrongful. It was an acknowledgment that the group had employed and continued to employ terrorist tactics to pursue their political goals. The current pro-MEK line is that the group has renounced those tactics, which is debatable, but it’s the purest revisionism to say that the group never deserved to be labeled as a terrorist group. Given that the MEK is a totalitarian cult, it is crazy to think that their leaders have anything in common with “freedom-loving people.” In the extremely unlikely and horrifying event that the MEK obtained real power, they would not preside over anything resembling a democratic government, but would establish their own deranged brand of authoritarianism. If not because they are being paid to say it, why would otherwise sane and intelligent people repeat such obvious propaganda again and again?”

++ Akhbar e Ruz which lists every group’s activities and gatherings on its news page, added a short announcement for the NCRI’s three day annual gathering in Paris. It says that most of the announcements which followed this gathering were only to attack critics of the MEK and about Maryam Rajavi. Nothing about other members’ views have been published. It also points out that Karim Ghassim, Mohammad Reza Rowhani and Massoud Rajavi were all absent on this occasion, saying the first two resigned a couple of months ago.

++ Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) ridiculed the MEK for paying beggars to sit in their protest gathering outside the United Nations in New York.” A UN staff member who had worked in Tehran for several years and is quite familiar with the demographic and national structure of the Iranian society was quite bewildered to see people with colored skins in the terrorist MKO gathering.

“An elderly lady who was participating in the MKO gathering said that she was from South Africa and was a professional beggar.

“She said two people had asked her to come in front of the UN headquarters and wave the MKO flag in return for 20 dollars and a meal.”

++ Behzad Alishahi has published a satirical booklet entitled ‘The typical methodology of the MEK’. As somebody who has worked in many of their organisational sections he goes into every individual case and describes how a checklist exists to counter various challenges like when they face an ideological, military or political defeat. He shows how a few bullet points help the MEK to counter these threats. Alishahi describes the MEK methods for ‘how to keep forces, how to attack critics, how to attract foreigners, how to write articles, how to make sites and organisations’, etc. Item number 10 is ‘how to give a speech’ (which of course means Maryam Rajavi) and the methodology is: to scream and shout and never put yourself in a position where you would be asked a question. Then issue a paid advertisement about freedom and women’s rights and all the things you never believed in. Memorise a few sentences in the language of the country you are in – write them in Farsi font so you can read from it – and pretend you know what you are saying with a silly smile on your face. Then read out what you actually want to say, choose the relevant parts you like the most and repeat each one five times and then ask the paid audience to clap for it. The ‘toppling of the regime’ and ‘victory’ and the name of Massoud Rajavi must not be forgotten to be used. The next item is ‘how to make a speech’ for Massoud Rajavi. No 13 is ‘how to react to news’: Immediately boycott the sources of the news and announce that you imposed the boycott because you didn’t like the news. Then create some opposite news and use photoshop to back it up. Divert attention by making and editing films and photos and publishing these in made up sites, and as a last resort announce a ‘nuclear revelation’…

July 19, 2013

July 21, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

MKO responsible for inflicting violence in Iraq

MKO has primarily become responsible for inflicting additional wave of violence in Iraq

For sure there are credible but classified e MKO has primarily become responsible for inflicting additional wave of violence in Iraq vidences that verify the close relationship and cooperation between the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) and al-Qaeda terrorist group as recently disclosed by Iraqi authorities. There are countless evidences that MKO committed numerous crimes against the Iraqi people in collaboration with Saddam and documents showing links between the group and several leaders of al-Qaeda terrorist network. To mention an existing concrete evidence, in 2012 the governor of Iraqi district Khalis announced the discovery of a memorial stone in Camp Ashraf inscribed with the names of some high ranking Ba’ath party officials and Al-Qaeda terrorists.

The Iraqi people have paid a heavy price for the restoration of order and peace in post-Saddam era. Despite the facts that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has spared no effort to rehabilitate ex-Baathists and pro-Saddam groups, the insurgency, whose members comprise both homegrown and foreign elements, continues its ferocious campaign against the government and to turn the country into a bloody ethnic battle field. The bulk of these insurgent groups are pro-Saddamists and remnants of the Baath Party as well as Saddam’s once nurtured terrorist groups like that of MKO to some extent. Of the second set of Iraqi insurgent networks operating at the present are foreign fighter groups, the most prominent of which is known to be al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).

MKO has since the fall of Saddam played its part as a devoted collaborator with other internal dissident factions and unwelcome alien intruders as one of the many impediments ahead of Iraqi people. Being the masters of arranging psychological and propaganda warfare, and because it had to keep in shadow, MKO, while in Camp Ashraf, had established a secure, secret bastion of conspiracy for the Iraqi opponents. Although each of these opponent groups may have different ideological infrastructures and are on a different path of struggle to achieve a certain goal, they are squarely within the consensus of a violent antagonism against the legitimate government.

The main feature that distinguished MKO from other operative dissident groups in Iraq but encouraged them to have it at their side was its remarkable potentiality in practice of ideologically justified violent activities. What these opponent groups were looking for to propel their protesting engine was a revolutionary ferment which MKO was believed to possess. And that was the zeal MKO tried to fuel whenever arranging a meeting inside Camp Asharf, a revolutionary zeal to develop a revolutionized philosophical world outlook. Massoud Rajavi, the absent leader of the group, had already rationalized the group’s revolutionary ideology in an inter-organizational handbook saying:

“Without a revolutionary ideology, it is impossible to have a revolutionary movement, organization and forces because ideology works as our source of light and guide to lead us on. I have to assert that ideology is one of the most outstanding manifestations of man’s life. That is to say, man is the only creature that lives with ideology; his life and death relay on a belief and ideology that he is bond to it in all conditions and communes with it.”

Surprisingly, al-Qaeda and MKO share close similarities in their organizational revolutionary spirit. That is much because the two nearly show great interest in the same ideological teachings of terrorism. Since both al-Qaeda and MKO are considered foreign terrorist fighters that have played their parts in throwing the country into disorder, the Iraqi government is decisive to uproot any party that may foster a relationship between the violent insurgent groups. By closing Camp Ashraf, it has achieved some success, but the group’s prolonged stay and its resistance to leave Iraq continues to impact the persistence of disorder and violence. Now under control to cut any contact with insurgent groups, MKO has primarily become responsible for inflicting additional wave of violence in Iraq; that is, the sporadic, retaliatory attacks against the group’s temporary location, Camp Liberty.

July 21, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

U.S. Politicians Seduced by MKO’s Shadow Government

A group of wealthy, hawkish Iranians-in-exile has premier access to U.S. Congress members.

MeK-backed lobbyists have been increasingly successful in engaging with members of Congress, many of whom are attracted by the National Council of Resistance’s self-described democratic and secular opposition to the unpopular Iranian regime.

Last month, in a Paris suburb, a bipartisan group of American politicians attended a massive conference and political rally held by an organization calling for the overthrow of the Iranian government. With wealthy donors A group of wealthy, hawkish Iranians-in-exile has premier access to U.S. Congress members. spread across Europe and the Middle East, the group is beating the war drums for American intervention in Iran.

The conference was the tenth such event organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which is the political wing of the People’s Mujahideen of Iran (MeK), a group that was classified as a terrorist organization by the State Department as recently as September 2012. The MeK and its supporters have increased their clout in Washington, as highlighted by the fact that three sitting representatives attended June’s annual conference—Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.). Last Friday, Roll Call reported that the representatives’ trips each cost more than $10,000 for the weekend.

In addition to those sitting representatives, this year’s event featured a collection of high-profile American political figures spanning the political spectrum. Republican conference participants featured former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Democratic conferencegoers included former Rhode Island congressman Patrick Kennedy, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. More than thirty other current House members were invited to the conference but did not attend.

As the political face of the MeK, the National Council of Resistance is a shadow Iranian government that was founded in Tehran in 1981 in the aftermath of [Ayatollah]Khomeini’s rise to power. in 1992. A now infamous 2009 Rand study, commissioned by the Defense Department characterized the MeK as “dissident cult group” (noting its practice of mandatory divorce for members) and remarked on its “deceptive recruitment and public relations strategies.”

While the organization has little actual presence in Iran, it has boosted its international profile as of late. The group reportedly offers handsome speaking fees at its conferences, according to the BBC, roughly $20,000 for a 10-minute speech.

“This is a group that is extremely dangerous,” says Jamal Abdi, senior policy advisor at the National Iranian American Council, an organization that lobbies against U.S. sanctions on Iran and for peace talks between the two nations.

A senior Democratic staffer tells In These Times that the MeK-backed lobbyists have been increasingly successful in engaging with members of Congress, many of whom are attracted by the National Council of Resistance’s self-described democratic and secular opposition to the unpopular Iranian regime. These lobbyists often work for groups with innocuous-sounding names, such as the Iranian-American Community of North Texas or the Iranian-American Community of Northern California. The name of the trip’s sponsor this year was the Organization of Iranian-American Communities.

“Part of what’s scary from a progressive perspective is that they’re very much pushing for war with Iran,” the staffer says, referencing the group’s leaking of alleged intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program to members of Congress. “They’re always here. I see them [on Capitol Hill] almost every day. Clearly they’re constantly meeting with people and pushing this agenda.”

The staffer compares the group’s tactics to those used by Iraq War supporters in the run-up to the 2003 invasion. At that time, many war hawks championed the cause of Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. That marginal group of Iraqi exiles, financed by the CIA, endorsed by the Bush Administration and promoted by the New York Times’ Judith Miller managed to earn a degree of international support by branding itself as a democratic alternative to the Saddam Hussein regime. Chalabi, whose organization leaked documents to the press and high-ranking politicians in the hopes of justifying American military intervention, eventually earned the title of “the George Washington of Iraq.” Chalabi is now a member of the Iraqi Parliament.

The MeK equivalent is Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the government-in-exile. Her husband used to lead the MeK but has been in hiding for the last 10 years. The couple maintains a cultish allure among their supporters.

At the rally last month outside of Paris, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) presented the beaming president-in-waiting with a gift. “On behalf of the U.S. Congress, I want to give you a plate that is sealed in glass, and when Iran is free and you are the President we will break this glass and break bread in Tehran together.”

BY Cole Stangler ,In These Times

July 18, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Shameless Pro-MEK Lobbying Continues

Just because the MEK is no longer listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S., that doesn’t mean that the shameless shilling and lying on their behalf has stopped. Here is Hugh Shelton:

For years, freedom-loving people around the world worked together under the courageous leadership of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, using every tool at their disposal, to get the wrongful designation of the Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) as a terrorist group removed.

Finally, the “good guys” won, empowering the most powerful group outside Iran in favor of disposing of the current Iranian leadership and providing the freedom-loving people of Iran a chance for democracy.

When the MEK was originally designated as a terrorist organization, that wasn’t wrongful. It was an acknowledgment that the group had employed and continued to employ terrorist tactics to pursue their political goals. The current pro-MEK line is that the group has renounced those tactics, which is debatable, but it’s the purest revisionism to say that the group never deserved to be labeled as a terrorist group. Given that the MEK is a totalitarian cult, it is crazy to think that their leaders have anything in common with “freedom-loving people.” In the extremely unlikely and horrifying event that the MEK obtained real power, they would not preside over anything resembling a democratic government, but would establish their own deranged brand of authoritarianism. If not because they are being paid to say it, why would otherwise sane and intelligent people repeat such obvious propaganda again and again?

I don’t accept it, but I understand the warped logic that says that Americans should support the MEK because it hates the current Iranian government. But even obsessive Iran hawks have to recognize that siding with a group reviled in Iran for its role in the Iran-Iraq war is doomed to fail, and every high-profile American that praises and lobbies on behalf of this group is another propaganda victory for the Iranian government. How better to confirm the Iranian government’s most self-serving claims about the U.S. than to have so many former U.S. officials and politicians romanticize the MEK into a group of democratic freedom fighters?

By Daniel Larison

July 17, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US Sponsored Iranian Terrorist MKO claims

US Sponsored Iranian Terrorist MKO claims, Iran Builds Secret Nuclear Site

The Iranian terrorist organization Mujahedin e Kkalq, MKO, has accused the Iranian government of building a secret nuclear facility northeast of Tehran. Iran´s Foreign Ministry dismisses the allegations.

The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has rejected allegations, made by the Mujahedin e Khalq, MKO, terrorist organization, in which the MKO accuses the Iranian government of building a secret nuclear facility. The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Seyyed Abbas Araqchi, dismissed the claims as being mere lies from a desperate terrorist group.

The MKO stated, that it has evidence that supports the accusation, that Tehran is building a nuclear site underneath a mountain near the city of Damavand, approximately 43 kilometers northeast of Tehran.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Araqchi dismissed the statements, saying:

“This report is by no means true and the Islamic Republic of Iran denies it. The terrorist MKO has been discredited to such a degree, that the publication of such stories by them is not worth a response”.

The Mujahedin e Khalq, which has been waging a low intensity conflict against Iran since the early 1980s, has been responsible for the death of more than 17.000 Iranians. Its main fighting forces are based in Iraq from where it has operated an insurgency with the approval of the former Iraqi administration of Saddam Hussein. The MKO is known for ties to the United States Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, and Israel´s Mossad. It has been tied to several high profile assassinations in Iran, including the assassination of Iranian nuclear physicists.

After the election of Nouri al-Malaki, relations between the MKO and the MKO soured. Iraqi support to the organization ceased, and the MKO was prohibited from launching attacks against targets in Iran from Iraq.

In 2012 both the United States and Canada removed the MKO from the terror list, drawing heavy Iranian and international criticism for double standards in their approach to combating international terrorism. MKO brigades have since been reported to be involved in the attempted subversion in Syria.

Several hundred leading MKO kadres have opened a facility in Kosovo, where the MKO is reportedly cooperating with the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA/UCK, US Special Forces, and civilian as well as military U.S. intelligence services. The MKO´s human rights record has been criticized by Iran as well as international rights organizations. The MKO is, among other, accused of forced recruitment and repression against families, who reject contributing members of their family to the insurgency.

By Christof Lehmann , nsnbc.me

July 16, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK Re-Ups 3 Year Old Nuclear Propaganda

Dirty Laundry: MEK Re-Ups 3 Year Old Nuclear Propaganda

Terror Group is Sounding Board for Dubious US Intel

Embracing its recent removal from the U.S. State Department’s list of designated foreign terrorist organizations, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian terror cult with deep pockets and close ties to the Washington establishment, is attempting to ramp up the fear-mongering and propaganda over Iran’s nuclear program following last month’s election of moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani as the Islamic Republic’s next president.

In April 2013, the group opened an office in Washington DC and officially registered as a lobbying organization the following month. Terror Group is Sounding Board for Dubious US Intel

Now, a Reuters article from July 11, 2013 reported the MEK and its affiliate organizations such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) claim to have “obtained reliable information on a new and completely secret site designated for [Iran’s] nuclear project,” despite providing no credible evidence to back up the allegation.

The supposed site is said to be “located in a complex of tunnels beneath mountains 10 km (6 miles) east of the town of Damavand, itself about 50 km northeast of Tehran.” The MEK claimed that construction of the site began in 2006 and it was recently completed. “The site consists of four tunnels and has been constructed by a group of engineering and construction companies associated with the engineering arms of the Ministry of Defence and the IRGC (Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards force),” a statement from the terror group said.

Unsurprisingly, the Iranian government immediately denied the allegations.

As in nearly all media reports on the MEK, Reuters credits the group with having “exposed Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy water facility at Arak” in 2002. But beyond the fact that Iran’s nuclear program was never a secret, this specific claim is untrue, as nuclear experts Jeffrey Lewis and Mark Hibbs pointed out back in 2006.

In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had been tracking Iran’s nuclear facility development for quite some time, notably its construction at both Natanz and Arak. Lewis notes that, in 2002, “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.” The information the MEK supposedly gleans from sources inside Iran are actually just leaks received from intelligence agencies in the United States and Israel.

Since then, the MEK has not itself provided a single shred of credible information regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Furthermore, in early 2007, an unnamed senior official at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed to the Los Angeles Times, “Since 2002, pretty much all the intelligence that’s come to us [from the United States about the Iranian nuclear program] has proved to be wrong” and has never led to significant discoveries inside Iran.

“They gave us a paper with a list of sites. [The inspectors] did some follow-up, they went to some military sites, but there was no sign of [banned nuclear] activities,” the official told The Guardian at the time. Additionally, the LA Times reported that “U.S. officials privately acknowledge that much of their evidence on Iran’s nuclear plans and programs remains ambiguous, fragmented and difficult to prove.”

Additionally, the Associated Press reported this past May that, when it comes to accusations about the Iranian nuclear program and despite their terrible track record, “about 80 percent of the intelligence comes from the United States and its allies.”

Reuters, writing about the MEK’s most recent revelation, noted, “The group released satellite photographs of what it said was the site. But the images did not appear to constitute hard evidence to support the assertion that it was a planned nuclear facility.” Clearly, a non-state actor like the MEK doesn’t have satellites of its own floating around in space taking pictures of Iranian mountains; it’s obviously getting the information from government organizations with advanced spying resources.

Though these latest claims by the MEK have garnered quite a bit of attention this week, they are, in fact, nothing new. Allegations about tunnel systems have long been a go-to source of alarmism over Iran’s nuclear program. Back in January 2010, on the heels of promoting an opinion piece that explicitly advocated an unprovoked military attack on Iran, The New York Times‘ William Broad published a hysterical report, which claimed, “Over the past decade, Iran has quietly hidden an increasingly large part of its atomic complex in networks of tunnels and bunkers across the country.”

The report goes on to lament that Iranian efforts to protect their own nuclear infrastructure from military attack is viewed by the U.S. administration as “a stealth weapon, complicating the West’s military and geopolitical calculus.” Translation: it’s harder to spy on things and then blow them up when they’re not out in the open and that’s annoying.

Broad doesn’t even try to mask the frustration:

“It complicates your targeting,” said Richard L. Russell, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst now at the National Defense University. “We’re used to facilities being above ground. Underground, it becomes literally a black hole. You can’t be sure what’s taking place.”

Even the Israelis concede that solid rock can render bombs useless. Late last month, the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, told Parliament that the Qum plant was “located in bunkers that cannot be destroyed through a conventional attack.”

Despite the decades of threats from the United States and Israel, then-U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates didn’t realize the blistering irony when, discussing the heavily-fortified uranium enrichment site at Fordow, he said, “If they wanted it for peaceful purposes, there’s no reason to put it so deep underground, no reason to be deceptive about it, keep it a secret for a protracted period of time.”

Later in his report, Broad describes Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a tunnel aficionado and quotes Greg Duckworth, a “civilian scientist” described as having “recently led a Pentagon research effort to pinpoint enemy tunnels,” as saying, “Deeply buried targets have been a problem forever. And it’s getting worse.”

As the January 2010 report continues, a familiar name emerges under the heading “An Opposition Watchdog.” Who could that be? Broad writes, “In 2002, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an opposition group, revealed that Iran was building a secret underground nuclear plant at Natanz that turned out to be for enriching uranium. Enrichment plants can make fuel for reactors or, with a little more effort, atom bombs.”

He goes on to sing the praises of NCRI for having announced “that Iran was digging tunnels for missile and atomic work at 14 sites” in 2005 and announcing “that Iran was tunneling in the mountains near Natanz, the sprawling enrichment site” in 2007, which he says was confirmed by satellite images.

In December 2009, Broad writes that NCRI issued yet another report on “Iranian military tunneling,” which claimed “Iran had dug tunnels and bunkers for research facilities, ammunition storage, military headquarters and command and control centers.”

“A group of factories” in the mountains east of Tehran, it insisted without providing proof, specialize in “the manufacturing of nuclear warheads.”

Broad even quotes the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Frank Pabian saying of the MEK, “They’re right 90 percent of the time. That doesn’t mean they’re perfect, but 90 percent is a pretty good record.” Mohamed ElBaradei, former IAEA Director-General, had a different take on the group. “We followed whatever they came up with. And a lot of it was bogus.”

In his reporting, William Broad never once identifies the MEK or NCRI as an officially designated terrorist group, which at the time they both were and had been for over a decade.

To hammer home how deliberately alarmist the claims actually were, the Times even published the article with a photograph of a smiling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his entourage in red hardhats emerging from what is apparently supposed to resemble a steel-reinforced underground lair. Yet the photo is wholly unrelated to any of the allegations made within the report.

The caption beneath of the picture reads, “President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, center, at a highway tunnel near Tehran. Much of Iran’s atomic work is also in tunnels.”

Yes, that really happened. Fit to print, indeed.

The focus on Iranian tunnels leads inevitably to discussion of American military capabilities and the challenges faced by less vulnerable facilities. Broad, in his 2010 report, noted that the “Pentagon is racing to develop a deadly tunnel weapon” for such circumstances. That weapon has since been completed and tested, but has not been sold to Israel for fear it might be used without American authorization.

Clearly, the MEK’s latest revelations are recycled claims and, like before, are essentially allegations based on vague intelligence leaked to the group by American officials. The MEK merely acts as a laundering service for the unproven accusations of its handlers in the United States and Israel.

Unfortunately, the mainstream press – even when skeptical about the information – continues to dutifully provide a platform for such propaganda and fear-mongering by publishing such accusations.

By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America

July 16, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO Advocates Embroiled in Scandals

The destiny of those having a contact with MKO is tied with scandals

It seems that the destiny of those having a contact with MKO is tied with scandals. Bob Filner, a former congressman and San Diego Mayor, is seeking to survive the sex scandal that is the talk of America’s Finest City. Three of his friends and longtime supporters went public Thursday with allegations from female staff members that his behavior has been reprehensible. Filner by releasing a video admitted that he has failed “to fully respect the women who work for me” and has at times “intimidated them”.

The story came up just after Filner returned from a trip to Paris where he attended MKO’s yearly meeting at Villepinte. The gathering was described as a meeting of Iranians in support of human rights and democracy, where he could meet with Iranian advocates of greater religious freedom and women’s rights. Filner said it was the third time he attended the annual event and his acceptance of the travel gift was permissible under the law. Filner still has not responded to requests of San Diego City Hall for information about the event and how much he was paid. The only information Filner has imparted is that his flight, meals and lodging were paid by the unnamed 501(c)(3) tied to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which organized the group rally wherein he gave a speech.

In February 2011, Carl Bernstein, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair who also writes periodically for Newsweek, delivered a speech at the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan in return for $12,000 as part of a campaign to challenge the terrorist designation of MKO. Bernstein is one of the few journalists, along with syndicated columnist Clarence Page who was rebuked by his employer for giving a similar speech in Paris last June; he had regularly appeared at MKO’s campaign events to convince the State Department to remove the group from FTO list and the consequent legal sanctions.

Bernstein is the man who discovered The Watergate political scandal in 1972 and played a central role in bringing down Richard Nixon, became the focus of a personal scandal when it was disclosed that he had affairs with Margaret Jay, the daughter of former Prime Minister James Callaghan and the wife of ex-British Ambassador Peter Jay. However, his last scandal of advocacy for the leftist MKO indicates that the passage of the time has contributed to arrive at a new “version of the truth”. In a part of his made speech at the MKO’s marshaled event he said: “I come here as an advocate of the best obtainable version of the truth, and as someone who believes in basic human rights and their inalienable status.”

Such double standards may insult those who truly care about their words and behaviors. But that is the type of freedom, human rights and women’s right that the advocates of MKO have learned to respect.

July 15, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MEK Stirs Pot in Iran Despite Improved Negotiation Outlook

MEK Stirs Pot in Iran Despite Improved Negotiation Outlook After Rohani’s Election

In a remarkably welcome surprise, moderate cleric Hassan Rohani won last month’s presidential election in Iran and did so with a large enough margin to avoid a runoff. In the immediate aftermath of the election, there was hope that the heated rhetoric on both sides of the dispute over Iran’s nuclear technology would calm a bit:

Though thousands of jubilant Iranians poured onto the streets in celebration of the victory, the outcome will not soon transform Iran’s tense relations with the West, resolve the row over its nuclear program or lessen its support of Syria’s president in the civil war there – matters of national security that remain the domain of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But the president runs the economy and wields broad influence in decision-making in other spheres. Rohani’s resounding mandate could provide latitude for a diplomatic thaw with the West and more social freedoms at home after eight years of belligerence and repression under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was legally barred from seeking a third consecutive term.

“This victory is a victory of wisdom, a victory of moderation, a victory of growth and awareness and a victory of commitment over extremism and ill-temper,” Rohani told state television, promising to work for all Iranians, including the hardline so-called “Principlists” whom he defeated at the poll.

Alas, those who favor violence over negotiation don’t intend to sit idly while moderation has a chance of breaking out. Today, we have a new “revelation” brought to us in a Reuters article:

An exiled opposition group said on Thursday it had obtained information about a secret underground nuclear site under construction in Iran, without specifying what kind of atomic activity it believed would be carried out there.

/snip/

The NCRI said the site was inside a complex of tunnels beneath mountains 10 km (6 miles) east of the town of Damavand, itself about 50 km northeast of Tehran. Construction of the first phase began in 2006 and was recently completed, it said.

The group released satellite photographs of what it said was the site. But the images did not appear to constitute hard evidence to support the assertion that it was a planned nuclear facility.

The Reuters article identifies NCRI as the National Council of Resistance of Iran and in addition to identifying them as “exiled dissedents” also mentions affiliation with the “People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI)” without noting that the more commonly used acronym for the latter group is MEK. That would be the same MEK that was only de-listed by the US Department of State as a terrorist organization last year. Promptly after de-listing, the group moved to register as lobbyists:

An Iranian group that was listed as a terrorist organization until last year has formally registered to lobby the Obama administration.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran told the Justice Department that it plans to “educate” the public and the U.S. government about the need to pursue an Iran policy “based on respect for human rights, non-proliferation, and promotion of democracy.” The council is an umbrella group of five Iranian opposition groups, the largest of which is the delisted terror group Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or MEK.

/snip/

The State Department closed the council’s Washington office in 2002, calling it a front group for the MEK. Since then, the group has earned the good graces of U.S. conservatives by drawing international attention to Iran’s clandestine uranium enrichment facility in Natanz.

That bit about NCRI exposing the Natanz facility? Even though it also is cited in today’s Reuters article, there is good reason to believe that MEK came into the information through a leak to them rather than their own intelligence-gathering:

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 convincing evidence in that article at Arms Control Wonk. That sequence of events, though, in which US intelligence made the discovery, briefed IAEA and then someone leaked the intelligence to the MEK is a sequence for which we have seen multiple variants over the years since.

I have posted many times on the network of “diplomats” in Vienna who leak either to George Jahn of AP or Fredrik Dahl of Reuters (Dahl wrote today’s Reuters article). Most of those leaks over the past few years have been couched in a way to put Iran in the worst possible light. Late in May, Jahn appears to have had an epiphany and finally pointed out that he likely was being fed slanted information.

Time will soon tell us whether there is indeed a new secret Iranian nuclear facility or if, as happens when NCRI produces its own “intelligence”, this is just another load of bunk. If NCRI’s satellite photos only appear on David Albright’s site (he has not yet posted them), then this is likely just another disinformation campaign by MEK. Real intelligence of a new site would very likely leak to a much wider array than just the credulous transcription crowd, especially given the tendency of John Brennan and Barack Obama to leak anything that puts them in a more flattering light or stronger bargaining position. My gut leans more toward this being more chaff thrown up by MEK because Iran has known that they have been under the most intense scrutiny ever under the Obama administration and that construction of a secret facility would inevitably be detected by US intelligence, just as Natanz was.

Postscript: Yes, I have used NCRI and MEK interchangeably in the text, as I find them to be functionally indistinguishable.

By Jim White, Emptywheel.net

July 14, 2013 0 comments

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