++ This week several more former MEK members have got married. Farsi commentators have warmly congratulated them and say this is the worst outcome for Massoud Rajavi as these people are happily and confidently breaking the taboo.
++ Following a handful of defections from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), Maryam Rajavi convened an emergency meeting of the remaining members. She announced that people are allowed to leave, but if they want to avoid character assassination and being labelled as traitors and agents of the Iranian regime, they must only leave according to the dictates of the MEK which will specify when, where and how the person should resign, and they must agree to remain silent ever after. Many people reacted by saying this is a desperate measure to ward off the collapse of the whole NCRI. Ghorban Ali Hossein Nejad wrote a detailed article questioning the conditions of the meeting, pointing out that some important people from inside the MEK didn’t attend even though they are in Auvers sur Oise. The commanders sent to Tirana to clamp down on dissent there didn’t attend either. Hossien Nejad raised the question of Massoud Rajavi’s chairmanship of the NCRI, saying that he hasn’t chaired meetings for over a decade, which he should according to the NCRI regulations. Yet, neither the Chair has been replaced nor have the NCRI regulations been changed to reflect this situation.
++ Maryam Rajavi announced that Zohreh Akhianeh in Camp Liberty is now head of the MEK. This has become a joke for everyone. Comments say it is ridiculous because they are sending love letters to one another at a time that Daesh is closing in on the camp and people in Europe running away. There has been a harsh reaction from the families [of Camp Liberty residents] in Iran, some of whom have complained that while there may be this love affair between these two and with the Americans, why do the people in Liberty have to pay the price.
++ Mazda Parsi’s article is titled ‘Mojahedin, the Unwanted Advisor for the West Against Iran’. He documents his article which says that from the start until now all the MEK have been doing is to tell other people – Israel, America, UK, Europe – what they should do against Iran, but they never say what they should do themselves. What is their place? Parsi points out that they are unwanted because nobody ever asked for their advice.
++ Sahar Family Foundation published its report about Ebrahim Khodabandeh’s visit to Baghdad. The report covers the various meetings with officials and interviews with the media. He was there with Masssoud Khodabandeh and Maryam Sanjabi to investigate the current situation of Camp Liberty and how it can be resolved to rescue the residents from the MEK and from the camp.
++ During his trip to Iran, Iraq’s Prime Minister Heydar Al-Abadi had meetings with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Rohani, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani and went to Qom to visit the religious leaders there. The main subject was cooperation between the countries and Iran’s help to Iraq to oust Daesh. On occasion Abadi announced that the problem of the MEK has been imposed on the Iraqi people, but that Iraq has developed a clear path and new plans mean they will be removed very soon. They are recognised as terrorists and murderers even up to the present. Analysts say that contrary to the positive spin the MEK have put on the change of government, Maliki was less enthusiastic to get rid of them than Abadi. The news prompted the MEK’s internal critics and recently separated people like Rowhani and Eghbal, to ask the MEK leaders why they are not doing anything to get Camp Liberty residents out of Iraq. Alongside this news, the notorious Senator McCain has written to President Obama using the MEK as platform to attack Iraq’s new government. Citing the situation of the MEK he demands, ‘you have to help them because the new Iraqi government is against them as well’. McCain specifically attacks Iraq’s defence minister who hasn’t accepted to work with the neocons and Israelis and who remains adamant about getting rid of Daesh, presumably with the help of Iran. McCain, who was photographed with Daesh a few months ago, is clear that for him the real problem is the Shiites in Iraq, the Iranians and the Syrian government but not Daesh.
++ Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, writes: ‘US War on Iran Takes Bizarre Turn’ “It is not Western policy that indirectly spurs the creation and perpetuation of terrorist organizations, but in fact, direct, intentional, unmistakable support.
This support would manifest itself in perhaps the most overt and bizarre declaration of allegiance to terrorism to date, US Army General Hugh Shelton on stage before terrorists of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) and their Wahabist counterparts fighting in Syria, hysterically pledging American material, political, and strategic backing. MEK was listed for years by the US State Department as a foreign terrorist organization, but has received funding, arms, and safe haven by the United States for almost as long.
General Hugh’s speech titled, “Making Iranian mullahs fear, the MEK, come true,” was most likely never meant to be seen or fully understood by Americans. In titled alone, it is clear that US foreign policy intends to use the tool of terrorism to exact concessions from Tehran. If the true nature of America’s support for terrorist organizations like MEK were more widely known, the current narrative driving US intervention in Iraq and Syria would crumble.
++ Mazda Parsi writing for Nejat Bloggers comments on Tony Cartalucci’s article (above). Parsi says, “The Rajavis believe in Machiavellianism that is embodied by the saying “the ends justify the means”. They have so far used any sort of violence, treason, dishonesty and fraudulent tactics to spur their hegemony over their cult – not Iran. Just as Cartalucci sees no future for the US empire-building policy, there is no future seen for the MKO’s futile efforts for power in Iran.” The article concludes, “The MKO leaders used to try to win hearts and minds with tanks and mortars and Kalashnikovs and now they are trying to win the support of the West by huge amounts of money they offer. They created their army of brainwashed and manipulated minds who murder and lie for their guru. They justified any means to gain their ends. They sold themselves to the West. Obviously the group has gained nothing except ill fame for itself. The group is notorious for its violence and abuse of its own members. But there is no use of the whole notoriety they made for themselves.”
++ IRNA reports that: “Scores of former members of the terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) will return to Iran following the complete collapse of the terrorist group in Iraq and after being pardoned by the Islamic establishment.
Legal procedures are underway for the return of the breakaway members of the terrorist group while a large number of others are in line to be forgiven by the Islamic Republic.
The list of the penitent members of the MKO was handed over to the special envoy of the UN Secretary General and they will be back to Iran in a near future.
++ Press TV reports that “according to a joint press statement by Iranian First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, released at the end of the latter’s visit to Tehran, “The Islamic Republic of Iran once again insisted on its full support for Iraq’s government and nation in the fight against terrorist groups.”” Also, “In a meeting with Iraqi Oil Minister Adel Abdul-Mehdi in Tehran on Wednesday, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani pointed to the US’s support for the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) and former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran in the 1980s, saying, “The intention of this country (the US) in its claim to fight terrorism is suspicious and untrustworthy.””