Nazi Biglari’s interview with Rayan Crocker
there are two Iranian dissident groups in Iraq: Mujahedin-e-Khalq and the Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan. Do the Americans have any links with these two?
there are two Iranian dissident groups in Iraq: Mujahedin-e-Khalq and the Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan. Do the Americans have any links with these two?
Reported by BBC originally in Persian, a group of Mojahedin-e Khalq’s detached members arrived in France. It is the first of a number of groups that managed to leave Iraq for a Western country. In the past months, groups of separated members have struggled to get to Western countries through neighboring countries
At a press conference in Paris on April 5, 2008, the first series of survivors of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation, aka the Rajavi cult or Saddam’s private army, announced their escape from Camp Ashraf in Iraq and their arrival in Europe. The Mojahedin, which is proscribed as a foreign terrorist entity in the US, UK, EU and Canada, was bombarded and disarmed by the US army
I was acquainted with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (MKO) in the university. They spoke about freedom and justice and also Islam and recruited me into their organisation. The same year, that is December 1987, I was sent to Iraq for a short visit and I returned back to Turkey. The following year I was asked to go to Turkey for a short visit again and I accepted. But this time my passport was taken away from me and they did not let me go back to Turkey.
… The American officer in charge recorded my particulars and after full investigation and taking orders from his superiors realised that they have been deceived by the MKO persons and I have been subject to a conspiracy where the Iraqi police was made to get involved. He asked the Iraqi police personnel to release me and after I finished my job to escort me back to my taxi that was still waiting for me, and do not let the MKO people bother me anymore or harm me. Meanwhile the American colonel talked to me on the line and assured me that there would be no problem for me and he expressed his wishes that I would make a safe return back to Baghdad …
Hoshiar Esmail says the biggest mistake of his life was to leave his safe exile in Switzerland and to return to the Mojahedin-e Khalgh (Volksmujahedin). In 1998, he went to Iraq, where the armed Iranian opposition group, equipped with weapons and money from the former Iraqi regime, led the struggle against the mullahs’ regime. But since then the political situation in Iraq has changed fundamentally. The Shiite and Kurdish-dominated government is pursuing a course of rapprochement with the former enemy Iran, which culminated in the recent visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
I am Keyvan Radbin. I was born on Sep. 22-1971 in Tehran. I got familiar with MKO by their TV and Radio programs. I became their full-time sympathizer from 1999 to 2001 in Tehran and my activities contained social and advertising for the organization. I leaved Iran to Iraq from Turkey for joining to MKO on July 18-2001. I stayed in Turkey for around one month and then after explanation process by the organization’s people in charge, I got moved to Iraq first to Basra port and then to Baghdad. After staying in Baghdad for half day I was moved to Ashraf camp.
The reporter continued by asking a question on the nowadays role of the organization, to answer the question, a terrorism expert Guidio Olimpio says:” in the past, the organization was involved in violent activities in terrorist forms but they have mainly dedicated their activities to the opposition since a few years ago and they are now definitly more active, although they don’t have the previous supporters
Ms Batul Soltani, former member of the MKO, appeals to the Iraqi legal authorities against the organisation based in Camp Ashraf..We were recruited by the MKO in that country and then we were ordered to go to Iraq a year later in 1987. In 1991 we were separated by the order of the organisation and had to give up our children who were sent to Europe later. At first my husband and I resisted against these demands, but being under enormous psychological pressure, we were forces to yield to their orders and eventually we were separated both from each other and then from our children.
In 1991 we were separated by the order of the organisation and yet again by their order our children were taken away from us and sent to Europe. My husband and I initially resisted these orders and did not wish to either be separated from each other, nor to abandon our children, but we were put under enormous psychological pressure and we were forced to submit to their demands.