++ This week Iranians joyfully celebrated Chahar Shanbe Suri with their families, with friends and in their communities. Nothing of much note happened apart from the usual needless, unfortunate firework injuries. Not a sign of the uprising that Maryam Rajavi’s ordered last week. Mohammad Karami exposed the MEK’s delusions on his weblog with an article titled ‘False Pictures, False News and False Identity’. He explains that the MEK have taken a single photograph from BBC Farsi showing that a police car was set ablaze outside a stadium in Ahwaz during a local clash. The MEK misleadingly claimed this is what happened “in Iran”. The MEK website also distorted an AP news article by adding bits to it themselves. Karami provided screenshots of the original AP article alongside the MEK version which clearly shows what they have added. Karami reminds us that they did the same thing last week with AP coverage of Maryam Rajavi’s Berlin Women’s Day show, in which the MEK edited out AP reporting that the audience was mostly made up of Polish and Czech students. He reminds us also of the ‘nuclear safe door’ debacle, pointing out that the MEK couldn’t even find a graphic obscure enough to avoid instant exposure. Karami reviews several years of photoshopped pictures of audiences, demonstrations and other events and concludes that the MEK has long ago become nothing more than image makers.
++ This week seven people moved out of Hotel Mohajer in Baghdad to resume normal life. The hotel is where ex members reside when they escape from Camp Liberty. This is good news because for many months conditions in Baghdad meant that there were not appropriate nor sufficient resources and facilities to allow them to move out. Now the situation in Iraq has eased the hotel has gone back to being a transit hotel.
++ Parviz Khazai, the MEK’s nefarious NCRI representative in Norway, has written a sixteen page report by order of Rajavi with title ‘Up to date report to the people of Iran’. Ebrahim Khodabandeh has unpicked it in an article, not, as he says because of the issues it contains but because this shows what the MEK’s problems are, where they are stuck and what they are trying to sort out with this report.
Khazai’s report has three subtitles: 1. About the Iranian regime. 2. About outside Iran and 3. About the people of Iran. Ironically, says Khodabandeh, Khazai explains that the MEK’s success are that it prevented Iran from taking over Iraq – during the eight year war [by siding with Iraq], during the 1991 Gulf war [by crushing the Kurdish uprising] and after the 2003 invasion [by siding with the Saddamists and insurgents] – and that it prevented Iran from building a bomb [as the source of nuclear exposures]. Although these are not things to be proud of says Khodabandeh, that is not the point; we didn’t think it was the MEK’s job to do these things. This is not opposition activity, in fact it is something quite different, and these are not questions of the Iranian people.
Khodabandeh says he is in contact with various people including current and former MEK members and they confirm that everybody’s questions are: 1. Where is Massoud Rajavi, the leader? 2. Why is it you are part and parcel of the Neocon/Zionist alliance and have nothing to do with Iran but everything to do with Israel? And 3. Where is all the money coming from to pay for all this? These are the questions of your own people let alone everyone else. Therefore this is not a report aimed at the people of Iran, nor is it aimed at the MEK’s own people. This report is for Israel because Rajavi is afraid of being dumped. It is an advertisement and justification of what the MEK has done for Israel in the hope of continued support.
In English:
++ TEHRAN (Tasnim) – ‘Mojahedin Khalq Has Strong Ties with ISIL: Former Member’
A former member of the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) revealed the group’s close relations with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group. Ghorban Ali Hosseinnejad said the leaders of MKO (also known as MEK) maintain strong ties with the ISIL Takfiri group in Iraq and Syria. “The MKO leaders had pinned hope in ISIL to seize control of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad after the northern city of Mosul fell to ISIL forces last summer”, Hosseinnejad was quoted by Iraqi Al-Masalah website as saying.
++ Michael Knights, Foreign Affairs, (The Council On Foreign Relations) ‘After Tikrit What to Do With Iraq’s Shia Popular Mobilization Units’
“Eastern Iraq has also been a literal and figurative battlefield between Iranian-backed Iraqi militants and the Iraqi state. Ravaged by the Iran-Iraq War, the borderlands soon after the cease-fire became sites of tit-for-tat border raids. Baghdad sent in the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MeK), Shiite opponents of the Iranian theocracy classified as a terrorist organization by the United States. Tehran sent in the Badr Corps, an Iraqi Shiite force recruited by Iran. In the 1990s, Iran also periodically sent its air force into Iraq to hit the MeK. It even fired salvos of Scud-like missiles into Diyala as late as 2001.”
++ Justin Raymondo, Antiwar.com ‘Bin Laden and Bibi, Together At Last, Israel’s alliance with al-Qaeda’: “Israel has never hesitated to ally with the worst elements on earth in order to advance what its leaders regard as the Jewish state’s interests. From South Africa’s apartheid regime to the death squads of Central and South America, to the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) – an Iranian exile group of Marxist terrorists – Israel has always given a helping hand to whoever merits it according to their amoral calculus. And as Israeli and American interests began to radically diverge – a process that has been ongoing since the demise of the Soviet Union – it makes perfect sense that they should align with our worst enemies.”
++ Nejat Bloggers: ‘Mr Rahmani – former MKO member – joined his family after 27 years’
“Mr. Mahmoud Rahmani who was a POW of Iran-Iraq war in 1987, was deceived into joining the Cult of Mujahedin-e Khalq. Mr. Rahmani who was forced to stay with the group for 27 years, transferred to Albania from Temporary Transit Location, Iraq. In Tirana far from the Cult boundaries and strict manipulation practices, Mr. Rahmani managed to release himself from the cult. Now, he is with his family after about a quarter of a century. When he left his family, his son was a 3 year old child. Now he is a 30 year old married young man. Within the mind manipulating cult of MKO, having contact with the family members both within and outside the Cult Camps is forbidden.”
++ Fars News: ‘Senior Iraqi MP: ISIL Continuing Mojahedin Khalq’s Terrorist Ideology’.
“Iraqi MP Hunain Al-Qado said the importance of reminding MKO’s crimes stems from the fact that some people try to keep these crimes under wraps.
He said the terrorist groups all pursue a shared objective, and added, “There is no difference between the ISIL’s terrorist acts in Iraq and Syria and Mojahedin-e Khalq’s terrorist acts.” “These groups use the same methods and have similar purposes which is creating fear and terrorizing civilians. So, what is going on now in Iraq is the continuation of MKO’s ideology.”
Emphasizing the need for cooperation among the regional countries that have been targeted by terrorist groups, al-Qado said, “On account of the arrogant powers’ struggles against Iran as well as their efforts in sowing the seeds of chaos in the Axis of Resistance, which is made up of Syria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and most probably Yemen in the future, it is vital to set up strategies in order to encourage integrated efforts in these countries and other countries which are a victim of terrorism.””
++ Iran Interlink, March 20 2015:… On the occasion of Norooz, Iran Interlink is posting this article titled ‘Uncertain Future for MKO’ which was first published by Knight Ridder in March 2005. Our thoughts and hopes are with the victims of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, and their families, who are still held in incommunicado captivity in Camp Liberty …