The MEK; the Hypocrites

Shahram Heidary, Declaration of Separation from the MKO

I am Shahram Heidary. I was born in Khuzestan, Iran in, 1966. I became an MKO sympathizer in 1987. I left Iran to join the MKO by the help of a human smuggler who was sent to me by the group. I arrived in Camp Ashraf in 2005. Shahram Heidary, Declaration of Separation from the MKO

I attempted to escape “Ashraf Prison” on September 15th, 2011 but I was arrested by the MKO guards. I was then tortured and interrogated severely. After a period of imprisonment, I went on hunger strike, which ultimately resulted in my release. They submitted me to the Iraqi Police.

When I was in Iran, I was manipulated by the MKO’s propaganda. I thought that it was every body’s desire to join the MKO in Ashraf but after a short while I found out that Ashraf was just a mirage. Once I realized the truth, I was captured in the cult and had no way back.

I scarified my wife and children for a deceitful organization. Although I lost everything, I could release myself from the terrifying hell of Rajavi.

I hope that my friends who are still under exploitation and imprisonment by the cult of Rajavi will be released from that nest of hypocrisy and deception with the help from the outside world as soon as possible.

Translated by Nejat Society

December 3, 2011 0 comments

Iran

Iran Letter Confirms Suspect in US Alleged Plot Belongs to MKO

Iran said in a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said one of the suspects in the US alleged assassination plot belongs to the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization – a terrorist group responsible for the death of thousands of Iranian, Iraqi and western people and officials during the last 5 decades.

A police probe into one of the suspects, following an Interpol request, suggested the individual "is a member of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq Organization," the Tehran mission in the United Nations said in a letter to the UN chief on Friday.

The letter did not explicitly identify or give the whereabouts of the suspect, but was apparently referring to Gholam Shakuri.

However, it said the new revelation proved that "US claims about the involvement of the Iranian government (in the alleged plot) do not border reality."

The United States had earlier alleged that Shakuri is an Iranian official in the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and that he co-conspired with an Iranian-American car salesman, Manssor Arbabsiar, to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

While Arbabsiar is in US custody and pleaded no guilty in his first court trial, Iranian officials had said that Shakuri is in the US and serving the terrorist MKO.

On October 27, Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi confirmed an Interpol request concerning Gholam Shakuri, hinting the suspect was a member of the MKO.

"There are 150 Gholam Shakuri (in Iran). Interpol sent us a question about this name, and our investigation showed a certain Gholam Shakuri who lives in the United States and is a member of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization," Salehi said during a visit to Saudi Arabia.

Tehran has vehemently denied any involvement in the alleged plot, and accused Washington of seeking to divert attention from domestic economic woes and foreign policy failures in the Middle East and attempting to fuel tensions between Iran and its neighbors.

The MKO, also known as the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and MEK, is regarded by Iran as a violent insurgent organization with a history of assassinations and sabotage aimed at overthrowing the Islamic government that took power in 1979. While the group claims to have renounced violence a decade ago, it is still classified as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department.

A report by the MNA on October 11 had first revealed that Shakuri is a member of the MKO.

The report did not explain the group’s possible motive but left the implication that the plot was a bogus scheme meant to frame and ostracize Iran.

It said Shakuri, who is at large, had last been seen in Washington and in MKO’s main training center in Iraq, Camp Ashraf.

"The person in question has been traveling to different countries under the names of Ali Shakuri/Gholam Shakuri/Gholam-Hussein Shakuri by using fake passports including forged Iranian passports," the report said.

The report said it had learned what it called the new information about Shakuri from Interpol.

The revelation that Shakuri is in fact a member of the opposition group is viewed as an embarrassing turn for the United States, which announced the suspected plot with some fanfare a week ago in a televised news conference by Attorney General Eric. H. Holder Jr., who said American investigators believed high officials in Iran’s government were responsible.

The US Justice Department has accused Shakuri and Mansour J. Arbabsiar, a naturalized Iranian-American citizen from Corpus Christi, Tex., of conspiring to hire assassins from a Mexican drug gang for $1.5 million to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States.

American officials have acknowledged the suspected plot sounds hard to believe but asserted they have the evidence to back it up.

Different Iranian officials, including Salehi, have rejected the claim. Yet, to prove that the US allegations are baseless, Tehran has asked the Washington officials to present their case along with their proofs and allow a consular access to Arbabsiar who is now under detention in the US.

Tehran has accused the Obama administration of concocting the plot to divert attention from its internal problems and stir a rift between the regional and OPEC kingpins Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.

The United States and Iran consider the group to be a terrorist organization but it was removed from a list of 50 banned militant groups compiled by the European Union in January 2009.

Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.

The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).

Many of the MKO members abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.

A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.

The group, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and Western targets.
The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.

The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.

Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who also argue for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

The MKO has been in Iraq’s Diyala province since the 1980s.

Iraqi security forces took control of the training base of the MKO at Camp Ashraf – about 60km (37 miles) north of Baghdad – in 2009 and detained dozens of the members of the terrorist group.

FNA -2011-11-06

November 8, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

MEK try to cover up involvement in failed coup attempt

MEK and its Western backers try to cover up involvement in failed coup attempt in Baghdad

After last week’s failed coup d’etat by Saddamist Baathists the Mojahedin-e Khalq now tried to MEK and its Western backers try to cover up involvement in failed coup attempt in Baghdad erase evidence of its involvement by removing from its own websites and media all the material against al-Maliki’s government and the incitement to violence against the government which it had copied from Baathist websites and media.

The Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorist cult has long enjoyed strong support and backing from some members of the European Parliament, specifically Struan Stevenson and Alejo Vidal Quadras, who are both members of the Iraq Delegation. They warn against Iraqi interference in the situation of the MEK headquarters Camp Ashraf which is known as the last Saddamist Baathist stronghold in Iraq.

Over time, the government of Al-Maliki has complained both directly and through its diplomatic representatives, of Western and specifically European interference in the internal affairs of Iraq. Some of this was linked to evidence of MEK involvement.

With the arrest of 615 Saddamist Baathists in the middle and south of Iraq charged with activities that threatened the safety and security of the state, it may be that the dots are finally being joined up.

Up until yesterday the MEK’s websites and media were forcefully promoting the views of several Iraqi politicians who are among those arrested. Today their names have been carefully expunged from the site. Also among the prominent names which have been removed are Heydar Molla, and Saleh Mutlaq.

Saleh Mutlaq was linked with financial support for the MEK prior to the last election. He was based in Brussels working closely with the MEK lobby against the de-Baathification process.

Interestingly, articles promoting the position of Struan Stevenson and Alejo Vidal Quadras still feature on the MEK site. As well as his well-known support for the MEK, Stevenson, in his capacity as Chair of the Iraq Delegation, has made several visits to Jordan in addition to those he made to Iraq. Jordan, of course, is where many prominent Saddamist Baathists relocated after 2003, including Saddam’s daughter. Between 2003 and 2009 the MEK’s base, Camp Ashraf in the Diyala province of Iraq was used as a secret gathering and training base for Saddamist Baathists as well as indigenous and foreign insurgents, under the protection of the American military.

October 31, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Iran Claims U.S.-Sponsored MKO Terrorists Conceived Saudi Ambassador

Since news broke that there was an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel A. Al-Jubeir (left), and destroy a number of embassies, Iran has adamantly denied the accusations. Likewise, skeptics questioned whether the plot could have been staged by Iran, who would have had little to nothing to gain from such an endeavor, and claimed that the plot was uncharacteristic of Iranian terror. Others have asserted that the entire plot was in fact manufactured by American law enforcement agencies as an impetus for war against Iran. Adding yet another layer to this news story, Iran has come out and said that the plot was in fact planned by the French/Iraqi-based Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK), which is actually funded and supported by the United States.

Last week, the United States charged American-Iranian Mansour Arbabsiar, a used car salesman, for his role in an alleged plot to murder Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir and attack Saudi installations in the U.S. in a plan reportedly plotted earlier this year. According to the Justice Department, Arbabsiar conspired with Gholam Shakuri, a member of Iran’s Qods Force — an arm of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran immediately denied the accusations, with the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast declaring, “These attitudes, which are based on the age-old and hostile policies of the American-Zionist axis, are a ridiculous show in line with a scenario that aims to divide and that emanates from enemies of the region.”

A number of experts across the globe came forward and questioned the claims that the plot had been sponsored by the Iranian government. They argued that the Qods Force is far too methodical and effective in its choice of proxies to have chosen a used car salesman and member of a Mexican drug cartel. Others assert that it is unlikely that Iran would sponsor such an act of terror as it does not serve Iranian interests in any way.

Iran has now raised accusations against another party, which they claim to be responsible for hatching the plot. The British paper The Guardian reports, “Tehran has pointed the finger at a dissident group it considers a ‘sworn enemy’ in an attempt to distance itself from US accusations that the Islamic regime in Iran conspired to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.”

According to Iran’s news agency Mehr, one of the two suspects that the United States asserted was involved in the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador is a “key member” of MEK. "The person in question has been travelling to different countries under the names of Ali Shakuri/Gholam Shakuri/Gholam-Hossein Shakuri by using fake passports, including forged Iranian passports," said Mehr.

MEK has been declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Listed as number 28 on the Department’s list of terrorist organizations, MEK has been responsible for terrorism against both the United States and Iran for years.

Yet MEK was considered by the Brookings Institution as a prime candidate for U.S. backing to remove the Iranian government. A 2009 report by the Brookings Institution, entitled “Which Path to Persia?” reads:

Perhaps the most prominent (and certainly the most controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention as a potential U.S. proxy is the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), the political movement established by the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). Critics believe the group to be undemocratic and unpopular, and indeed anti-American.

In the 1970s, however, MEK was responsible for the death of three American officers and three civilian contractors in Iran. The group also voiced significant support for Iran’s taking of hostages during the Iranian hostage crisis, and some reports indicate that members of the group celebrated the 9/11 attacks, though the organization publicly condemned the attacks.

MEK has conducted a number of other terrorist attacks as well, but most have been excused because they were directed against the Iranian government. In 1981, MEK bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, killing approximately 70 officials. The organization has also taken credit for dozens of Iranian civilian and military attacks between the years 1998 and 2001.

Still, the United States has reportedly supported the organization. In a 2008 New Yorker article entitled “Preparing the Battlefield,” Seymour Hersh revealed,

“The M.E.K. has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, yet in recent years the group has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States. Some of the newly authorized covert funds, the Pentagon consultant told me, may well end up in M.E.K. coffers. “The new task force will work with the M.E.K. The Administration is desperate for results.” He added, “The M.E.K. has no C.P.A. auditing the books, and its leaders are thought to have been lining their pockets for years. If people only knew what the M.E.K. is getting, and how much is going to its bank accounts — and yet it is almost useless for the purposes the Administration intends.”

Hersh also appeared on National Public Radio and indicated that the United States had trained a number of MEK members.

There has been an effort in the United States to remove MEK from the list of terrorist organizations, presumably so that the federal government could provide even more funding to the group.

For some, information such as this is enough to convince them that the entire war on terror is fraudulent and should be approached with skepticism. One popular blog wrote of the war on terror:

From the beginning, even for those wanting to believe the fairy tale that 9/11 was carried out by cave dwellers carrying box cutters directed by Osama Bin Laden, who by all accounts was dying or already dead from kidney failure in 2001 — "unfortunate blunders" in US foreign policy can still be blamed for the creation and perpetuation of the ubiquitous, unceasing terror organization known as Al Qaeda. However, in light of recent events in Libya, Syria, Iran, and Algeria, there is exposed a truth, many have known for over 10 years, and many more are catching onto now — that the "War on Terror" is an absolute fraud, started, fueled and simultaneously fought against by the same handful of corporate-financier interests for the sole purpose of spreading Wall Street and London’s hegemony across the globe.

According to Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it is this type of fraud that has led the U.S. government to accuse Iran of the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador. Comparing it to assertions that Iraq maintained weapons of mass destruction, Ahmadinejad said that the U.S. simply “fabricated a bunch of papers” to support its claims at the time. “Is that a difficult thing to do?” he asked.

by Raven Clabough – The new American

October 30, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

The MEK’s Propaganda Machine

The National Interest will be running on Monday a response to Raymond Tanter’s missive on behalf of the Iranian cult/terrorist group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. Given that Tanter goes out of his way to raise my name a couple of times, it would be appropriate for me as well to point out a couple of the more glaring misdirections in his piece.

Tanter’s premise, as reflected in his title, is that anything bad you ever heard about the MEK is a product of propaganda from the Iranian regime. Evidently this means that anyone, either inside or outside of Iran, who has ever been critical of the group must have been brainwashed by the propaganda. If that were true, those responsible for U.S. public diplomacy have a lot of valuable lessons to learn from the Iranians; their propagandists must be doing something right.

The Iranian regime flings propaganda as freely as any other regime. And it certainly has had a lot of unfavorable things to say about the MEK. Some of those things may be exaggerated or even outright lies. But one could erase completely everything the Iranian regime has ever said on this subject, and there would remain the large, long, sordid record of what the MEK has done, what it has stood for, and the abhorrent cult it still is. The record extends from the days it was killing Americans while opposing the shah, through when it was in league with the clerical regime and supporting further anti-American acts such as the hostage-taking at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, through the long period during which it was working for the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. The record is not based just on what is said by the State Department or an intelligence agency or any governmental component with a policy to support, much less on anything the Iranian regime might say. If you want a recent independently reported portrait of the group, see, for example, this article by Elizabeth Rubin.

Tanter tries to smear critics and criticism of the MEK, including some of the contents of an open letter to which I was a signatory, by saying it “resembles regime propaganda against the MEK.” The MEK has conducted terrorism and other violent acts against U.S. interests and against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Is it any surprise that some of the critical things said about the group from the standpoint of U.S. interests resemble some of what the Iranian regime puts out? (And if it’s not brainwashing, then just what is Tanter suggesting is the reason for the resemblance?)

One of the respects in which Tanter’s piece diverges most widely from reality is his attempt to argue that the MEK has any support to speak of within Iran. He notes that the group was the source of some revelations about Iran’s nuclear program. True—and we ought to remember our reliance on the accident of this weird sourcing when we think about how much confidence we ought or ought not to have in our knowledge of this program—but what does that have to do with popular support? It only takes one person to serve as a source. The most telling indication of the MEK’s unpopularity in Iran, as pointed out in the aforementioned open letter, is that the Iranian regime uses that unpopularity as a way to discredit the democratic opposition in Iran, by trying to associate it with the MEK. For the same reason, the leaders of the Green Movement have emphatically said that they want nothing to do with the MEK. Tanter also mentions attendance at pro-MEK rallies in the United States as a measure of support, without mentioning that the MEK campaign has resorted to such measures—used in a rally outside the State Department this summer—as padding attendance by busing in homeless people who don’t know squat about the MEK or Iran but come for the free food.

Tanter precedes a reference to me with the odd statement that “Intelligence communities are targets of Iran’s disinformation.” Odd because I have been out of the intelligence business for more than six years, and anyone who views my thinking as having any connection with judgments that an intelligence agency would reach today will be disappointed and wasting their propaganda resources. Tanter later mentions me again as someone who ought to be concerned about the “political motivation” for having the MEK on the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, or FTOs. It is true that the listing process is not immune to policy considerations, but that has been much more a matter of avoiding the listing of a group that really ought to be on the list (the Provisional Irish Republican Army of fifteen years ago is the example that comes to mind), than of including on the list a group that should not. Not listing someone means simply not initiating the listing process. Listing a group requires a lengthy process of review by the Departments of State, Justice, and Treasury and the intelligence community, according to the criteria specified by law.

Tanter seems to believe that a group has to have committed terrorist acts within the previous two years to be kept on the list. Not true. (Having been directly involved in the laborious process of compiling the required administrative records for the initial listings after enactment of the law in 1996 that created the FTO list, I know a thing or two about this subject.) Two years used to be the interval between recertifications of listed groups, and it is now the period after which a group can petition for delisting. But no terrorist acts have to have been committed during that period; retaining the capability and presumed intent to commit them is sufficient to stay on the list. If performing terrorist acts recently was a requirement to stay on the list, many of the 49 groups currently on the list would have to come off. Lebanese Hizballah, for example, probably would be one of them. I expect that many of the pro-MEK campaigners would be among the first to scream if that happened.

There is indeed a large amount of political influence that is being exerted in an effort to affect a decision about the FTO list, and it is almost all coming in the form of the large and well-funded campaign to delist the MEK. In fact, the campaign is extraordinary, and nothing remotely resembling it has ever been waged on behalf of any other group on the FTO list. Whatever is being said in the opposite direction is only a modest reaction to the pro-MEK campaign itself. Here is what I said on the subject two months ago, after that rally outside the State Department:

The secretary of state should pay no heed to what Melvin Santiago and the other hungry homeless outside her office window are saying, or to what the high-paid hired guns are saying, about the MEK. Nor does she need to pay any attention to what people like me are saying about the group. She should keep the windows closed and just pay attention to the terms of the law and to what officials in the departments and agencies involved say about whether the terms of the law still apply in this case.
If Raymond Tanter really wanted to inform us about political influence being exerted on what ought to be administrative and legal decisions, he could shed more light on the campaign of which he is a part. In particular, he could help us understand where all that funding is coming from. It evidently is coming from quarters who would like to stoke ever more tension and animosity between the Iran and the United States. I have a guess who that might be, but so far it is only a guess.

Paul R. Pillar, The National Interest

October 30, 2011 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

Open Letter to Ashton on hostages in Camp Ashraf

Dear Mrs Ashton,
Anne Singleton, Middle East Strategy Consultants
It is interesting and entirely predictable that at the same time you replied to Iran that the six major powers – the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia – are willing to meet within weeks if Iran is prepared to "engage seriously in meaningful discussions" over concerns about its nuclear programme, we have seen a flurry of activity by the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) to skew perceptions of the issue with misinformation and self-aggrandising propaganda.

Paid MEK activists held yet another demonstration in front of the White House on Saturday with the irrelevant demand that the US government remove the MEK from its terrorism list. In Brussels Maryam Rajavi, wife of the MEK’s leader, was given a platform to promote terrorism in the European Parliament. Conflating the totally irrelevant issue of Camp Ashraf in Iraq with the problems posed by Iran’s nuclear programme and the MEK’s terrorist listing in the US, she was given a platform to verbally attack and insult Iraqis and their elected government from a parliamentary building.

The MEK is certainly highly proficient in advertising itself as a tool for anti-Iran elements to use and it is unfortunate that Europe’s corridors of power are being so casually exploited to promote Washington’s favourite terrorists. The intended signal is that Europe will brandish a stick to open negotiations with Iran over the nuclear issue. Does the European Commission represent European interests in this respect or do you represent the agenda of only the extreme right wings of USA and Israeli politics?

But as much as we believe this is against your interests, these are political issues and we do not wish to take any position in this respect. Our first and foremost concern is that you do not allow the issue of Camp Ashraf and its sick and aging population to be used as a political football for everyone to kick around for their own game.

It has been reported that Mrs Rajavi conveyed her thanks to you for taking the side of the MEK against the government of Iraq. If this is true it is highly unfortunate that your office has been manipulated to look as though you are taking a position of backing the head of a terrorist cult instead of the victims.

Mrs Rajavi like her fugitive husband Massoud Rajavi does not represent the individuals trapped inside Camp Ashraf. The Rajavis do not represent anybody’s interests but their own.
The Government of Iraq has frequently advised representatives of the European Union not to use the MEK to push their agendas in Iraq, to the point of issuing written and verbal complaints against interference in the internal affairs of their country, including their elections, and have warned against using elements of terrorism to push their agendas. However, these political issues must be addressed in another arena by other parties. We are specifically interested that you have now taken responsibility for dealing with Camp Ashraf.

As you are aware, around 3400 Iranian individuals remain trapped in a dangerous, destructive mind control cult, the Mojahedin-e Khalq, by its leader Massoud Rajavi inside Camp Ashraf in Diayla province of Iraq.

Since the MEK was confined to and protected in the camp by the US military in 2003, Rajavi has resisted all efforts to allow any external agencies to free these individuals in a peaceful and humane manner. Rajavi is holding the residents as hostages to guarantee his safe future, to avoid prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity brought against him by the government of Iraq and the international community.

You are also aware that since February 2009, many of the families of these hostages have taken turns to stay just outside the camp in an effort to find and meet their loved ones and to prevent the MEK from further harming them. Now, as a new contingent of families from Gilan province in Iran have arrived at the camp, we are writing to you on behalf of the families of the captives of the MEK and its Western backers in Washington, London and Brussels. (Such ordinary Iranians find themselves voiceless in Western political and media circles due to the virulently anti-Iranian attitude which prevails in these circles.) They wish first and foremost to remind you that they are part of the solution, not the problem.

You have demonstrated your particular interest in this issue by appointing Mr Jean De Ruyt, a former Belgian ambassador to the EU, as your advisor on Camp Ashraf. He will no doubt be investigating and examining whatever approaches are available to resolve the situation. By situation I refer to the standoff between the constitutional and legal demand of the elected government of the sovereign nation of Iraq, and the illegal and irrational demands of a cult leader as the hostage taker who represents nobody but his own interests and who is prepared to kill others to this end.

The government of Iraq demands that the MEK leave Iraq before the end of the year, certainly before American troops are withdrawn. For this reason, there is an urgent need to find an effective solution. On two occasions, August 2009 and April 2011, when Iraqi security forces have attempted to enter the camp to impose the rule of law on the camp, Massoud Rajavi ordered his special forces, his fedayeen, to force the brainwashed residents to confront these efforts with a suicidal resistance which led to the deaths and injuries of many rank and file members as well as injuries to Iraqi security forces. Iraq is working hard to avoid a similar confrontation in future and is expecting cooperation from the international community in this respect. Soon after the second of these incidents I visited the camp and interviewed the responsible authorities and gathered enough evidence which is available for any party who would like to know. Since 2008 three reports have described the situation of the camp and two books have been written on the subject.

Mr Jean De Ruyt, who will liaise with EU states and organizations including the United Nations, says that a peaceful and realistic solution and the security and safety of residents are his priority. For this reason the families are very optimistic now that you have taken over responsibility from the Americans. With the appointment of this advisor the families now believe your office has a mandate to help Iraq, the UN and ICRC to resolve the situation as soon as possible.

The families are asking that you coordinate with the Iraqi authorities to help them to protect their relatives when the leaders are finally forced to open the gate of the camp and allow external agencies in. This is the first step before the UNHCR can take the residents out of the garrison and interview them individually without MEK minders present. It is at this time of maximum confrontation that they fear Massoud Rajavi will order the deaths of the residents.

Once the gates of the camp are finally opened safely, the residents will of course be able to access the facts and information which have been denied them for decades about their true situation and the possibilities for their future. Whatever their choices, their families are on hand to offer them protection and support. Of course, not all the families can be in Iraq at the same time, but all are willing to travel there to help their loved ones when their individual circumstances demand.

The MEK is designated as a terrorist organisation by Iraq based on its activities in their country against their citizens – the MEK has killed 25,000 Iraqi civilians over two decades. In contrast, the EU does not regard the MEK as a terrorist entity. This should make it possible for residents of Camp Ashraf – in addition to those who already have citizen or residency rights – to be brought to Europe as refugees under the auspices of the UNHCR. (Due to the peculiarities of American law, delisting the MEK in the USA would play no part whatsoever in helping the people in Camp Ashraf.)

Considering that the US military has deliberately helped the MEK to keep the gates closed and the residents trapped inside, the opportunity now exists for you to act as a go-between for the US and MEK and thus ensure that the camp is opened up at the earliest opportunity so that work can start to relocate the hostages. Certainly the government of Iraq is happy to help facilitate this outcome on the understanding that if this process is not begun by the end of the year, the international community has obliged them to take unilateral decisions regarding the camp and its residents.

Above all else, the families outside have travelled from far and wide to rescue their loved ones and are more than happy to ensure a swift and peaceful outcome. There can be no possible objection or obstacles to helping them.
Anne Singleton
(Author of Saddam’s Private Army, 2003 and co-author of The Life of Camp Ashraf, 2011)
Iran-Interlink
MESC Ltd
U.K.

October 26, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Iran Links US-funded MKO Terrorists to Saudi-DEA Bomb Plot

Baseless US accusations countered with more likely Iranian allegations.

Gholam Shakuri, who the US has claimed is a member of Iran’s elite Quds Force, and behind a bungling plot involving a used-car salesman and undercover US DEA agents to assassinate a Saudi Ambassador in Washington DC, thus serving as an impetus for a war with Iran the US has been desperately pursing for the greater part of a decade, is now being accused by Iran of instead being a member of the French/Iraqi-based Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK), the Guardian reports.
MEK. Admittedly a terrorist organization, listed by the US State Department as being such, it is fully funded, armed, and backed by the United States, based in France and US-occupied Iraq, and allowed to conduct terrorist operations against the Iranian people. The”War on Terror”is a fraud.
….

Number 28 on the US State Department’s list of”foreign terrorist organizations,”MEK has conducted terrorist operations against both the United States and Iran for decades. Readers may be shocked then to realize that MEK has been considered by the Fortune 500-funded Brookings Institution as a prime candidate for US-backing in an effort to undermine and remove the Iranian government. In Brookings’ 2009 report,”Which Path to Perisa?”it is stated:

“Perhaps the most prominent (and certainly the most controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention as a potential U.S. proxy is the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), the political movement established by the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). Critics believe the group to be undemocratic and unpopular, and indeed anti-American.

In contrast, the group’s champions contend that the movement’s long-standing opposition to the Iranian regime and record of successful attacks on and intelligence-gathering operations against the regime make it worthy of U.S. support. They also argue that the group is no longer anti-American and question the merit of earlier accusations. Raymond Tanter, one of the group’s supporters in the United States, contends that the MEK and the NCRI are allies for regime change in Tehran and also act as a useful proxy for gathering intelligence. The MEK’s greatest intelligence coup was the provision of intelligence in 2002 that led to the discovery of a secret site in Iran for enriching uranium.
Despite its defenders’ claims, the MEK remains on the U.S. government list of foreign terrorist organizations. In the 1970s, the group killed three U.S. officers and three civilian contractors in Iran. During the 1979-1980 hostage crisis, the group praised the decision to take America hostages and Elaine Sciolino reported that while group leaders publicly condemned the 9/11 attacks, within the group celebrations were widespread.

Undeniably, the group has conducted terrorist attacks—often excused by the MEK’s advocates because they are directed against the Iranian government. For example, in 1981, the group bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, which was then the clerical leadership’s main political organization, killing an estimated 70 senior officials. More recently, the group has claimed credit for over a dozen mortar attacks, assassinations, and other assaults on Iranian civilian and military targets between 1998 and 2001. At the very least, to work more closely with the group (at least in an overt manner), Washington would need to remove it from the list of foreign terrorist organizations.”page 117-118 of”Which Path to Persia?”Brookings Institution, 2009

Readers may also be shocked to find out that not only has this been proposed, but long ago approved. This was revealed in Seymour Hersh’s 2008 New Yorker article”Preparing the Battlefield,”which stated:

“The M.E.K. has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, yet in recent years the group has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States. Some of the newly authorized covert funds, the Pentagon consultant told me, may well end up in M.E.K. coffers. “The new task force will work with the M.E.K. The Administration is desperate for results.” He added, “The M.E.K. has no C.P.A. auditing the books, and its leaders are thought to have been lining their pockets for years. If people only knew what the M.E.K. is getting, and how much is going to its bank accounts—and yet it is almost useless for the purposes the Administration intends.”

Moves have also been made to get MEK de-listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department so that even more aid can be rendered to this admitted terrorist organization. Seymore Hersh in an NPR interview, also claims that select MEK members have received training in the US.

Readers, in the absence of evidence provided by America’s gun-running Attorney General Eric Holder, must consider which is more plausible; that the DEA entrapped a patsy arranged by MEK who has been training literally inside the United States for years, or that Iran’s elite Quds Forces lapsed into insanity, contradicting years of Iranian foreign policy, noted even by America’s conspiring warmongers as wanting to avoid any justification for Western aggression against their nation.

By landdestroyer.blogspot.com

October 25, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Withdrawal of US Troops From Iraq Highly Suspect

Think-tank designs for Iran leave only Israeli attack & coaxed provocation for total war on table.
For ten months the Obama administration has presided over the "Arab Spring," a geopolitical Withdrawal of US Troops From Iraq Highly Suspect gambit years in the making, and executed simultaneously in multiple nations throughout the Middle East and North Africa in the beginning of 2011. The regional conflagration was stoked by a steady stream of first, denial, even feigned surprise, with covert support for US-backed opposition groups, then more overt support, and finally NATO airstrikes, weapons, training, and special operations forces lent to the rebellion in Libya and weapons and support sent to Syria’s militants. These collective efforts stretching from Tunisia and leading up to Iran’s doorstep serve a singular agenda -that is, to contain and ultimately overturn the reemergence of Russia as well as containing the rise of China.

Toppling Iran

Integral to this stated agenda, is the toppling of Iran’s government and its integration into the Wall Street-London "international order." Efforts to topple Syria’s government by US-backed and now apparently armed opposition groups aim to isolate and even provoke the Islamic Republic into a suitable justification for US or Israeli (or both) retaliation. As reported on extensively, the literal playbook from which these stratagems are drawn is the Fortune 500-funded Brookings Institution’s "Which Path to Persia?" report. In it, it specifically states:

"…it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.) "

The 2009 "Green Revolution" was just such an attempt at "covert regime change" to "goad Iran into such a provocation" though it ignominiously failed. It appears that in addition to funding, arming, and harboring the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK), the US has also taken to entirely fabricating "such provocations." The recent DEA-Saudi bomb plot announced by Attorney General Eric Holder stands on tenuous grounds, even more so now that Iran has counterclaimed that the supposed Quds Forces member the US implicated may in fact be a member of the above stated US-backed MEK terrorist organization. The US has done all in its power to coax Saudi Arabia into taking a harder line against Tehran. The Brookings report had this to say about that in 2009:

"For instance, Saudi Arabia is positively apoplectic about the Iranians’ nuclear program, as well as about their mischief making in Lebanon, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories. Yet, so far, Riyadh has made clear that it will not support military operations of any kind against Iran. Certainly that could change, but it is hard to imagine what it would take."

"…it is hard to imagine what it would take." Perhaps MEK terrorists posing as Quds Forces, entrapping a drug addicted used-car salesman to arrange a bomb plot against a Saudi ambassador and then blaming it on Iran.

With the fate of Libya hanging in the balance, with US troops still occupying both Iraq and Afghanistan, and with renewed vigor aimed toward Syria after the alleged fall of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, it is incredibly unlikely that the US has abandoned its plans to ultimately topple the Iranian regime as the crescendo to this ongoing regional campaign. In fact, many amongst Obama’s own administration have been the most rabid supporters of executing the final leg of this long-term strategy started under the Bush administration. The 2008 presidential runner-up John McCain, and of course the same collection of unelected, corporate-funded policy makers from the halls of Brookings Institution, the Foreign Policy Initiative and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) have also been more than eager in pushing this agenda along.

That these policy makers, who have helped engineer and support the current course Obama is on, are now sulking over Obama’s decision to pull troops out of Iraq when in fact Obama doesn’t, never has, and never will make such decisions, is highly suspect. Kenneth Pollack, one of the co-authors of the "Which Path to Persia?" report, recently expressed dismay in his article titled, "With a Whimper, Not a Bang." Frederick Kagan, the corporate-funded AEI architect behind the Iraq "troop surge" also lamented in a piece titled, "Obama abandons Iraq." Kagan explicitly claims that the withdrawal would be "giving Tehran the single most important demand it has pursued for years—the complete withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq."

Possible Scenarios

The US is at least peddling the illusion it is clearing out its holdings in Iraq, leaving a symbolic force for a reason – a reason that has to do with a final gambit to be played against Iran, the last domino to fall in the US-contrived "Arab Spring." These are two possible scenarios:

1. Leave a small symbolic force for the Iranians to attack in Iraq after a "unilateral" Israeli airstrike. Whatever Iran decides to do, it may not be able to do sustainably, but will do viciously in the opening phases. By leaving a symbolic force in Iraq, the US can garner the necessary sympathy and anger politically at home to launch a wider operation against Iran in "retaliation."

2. Feign as if the US is disengaging from the Middle East so when a false flag terror attack or other provocation is perpetrated against the US, it will look like an egregious act of war by Iran. While a shrinking US presence in the Middle East would logically engender even more patience in Tehran, the script writers of the latest DEA-Saudi bomb plot took special care to ensure the "Iran has become bolder" talking-point made it repetitively on air and into the minds of unsuspecting Americans.

This is more than mere idle speculation. In the Brookings Institution report, "Which Path to Persia?" nearly all but the most extreme measures proposed in the report have been executed. The only options left on the table unused include a unilateral Israeli airstrike designed to provoke a significant retaliation thus bringing the US into war with Iran and a variety of options to provoke a full-scale invasion.

In a section of the report titled, "Leave it to Bibi: Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike," (page 89, page 102 of the .pdf) it appears that Israeli intelligence is also working with the terrorist organization MEK:

"Israeli intelligence operations against Iran were stepped up even earlier and have included use of third parties to publicize the Iranian threat without revealing the Israeli hand. Iran’s secret enrichment and heavy-water reactor programs were publicly exposed in August 2002 by an Iranian dissident group (the Mujahedin-e Khalq), which reportedly was unwittingly fed the information by Israeli intelligence."

The report goes on to say of an American approved Israeli airstrike:

"However, as noted in the previous chapter, the airstrikes themselves are really just the start of this policy. Again, the Iranians would doubtless rebuild their nuclear sites. They would probably retaliate against Israel, and they might retaliate against the United States, too (which might create a pretext for American airstrikes or even an invasion.)"

Allowing the Israelis to attack by air, and sacrificing US troops on the ground in Iraq as a pretext for greater war is most certainly a possibility. The report continues on by stating the necessity of maintaining a certain level of plausible deniablity regarding the Israeli airstrikes. US troops in Iraq would by default implicate America in any Israeli airstrike that would need to pass over Iraqi airspace. US troops "in retreat" in Iraq could possibly mitigate such implications as well as make an Iranian retaliation seem all the more "outrageous, deadly, and unprovoked."

We can be sure that after years of carrying forth an agenda that proceeded his presidency, Obama has not all the sudden decided to unilaterally pull troops from Iraq. His administration’s duplicity and eagerness throughout the US-contrived "Arab Spring" all but assure us that the overarching agenda still includes encircling and toppling the government in Iran. It has not escaped the attention of the White House that a withdrawal from Iraq would give Iran its greatly desired breathing room and would greatly diminish America’s influence throughout the Middle East.

Just like the false rapprochement of the West with Libya’s Qaddafi before the US rearmed, reorganized, and let loose the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), when the West returns to torment Tehran, it will come back with a vengeance. Keep an eye on Israel for their attack and the complicit United States waiting to once again "lead from behind." And if you have someone you know in the US military stationed in Iraq staying behind, prepare for the absolute worse. As Henry Kissinger once so bluntly stated, "military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy." (Woodward and Bernstein The Final Days in chapter 14). Certainly, a few dead G.I.s in Iraq after an Iranian retaliation for an Israeli airstrike would be just the pawns needed for "foreign policy" to move forward.

One can only hope this pessimistic analysis is entirely wrong, and that the US has overreached and has simply decided to withdraw from the battlefield and ultimately from empire. However, if unrest continues to unfold in Syria, which is essentially a low-intensity US proxy war against Damascus, and in turn against Tehran, we can be sure any optimism will be quickly dashed against the rocks by the Wall Street-London corporate-financier oligarchs.

Landdestroyer

October 25, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Do not Trust MKO Fabrications

Following the allegations on the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to Washington, the prominent journalist, Michael Rubin wrote a commentary on the Commentary Magazine on October 18, titled ”Iran Says Plot was Mujahedin Put-Up Job”.

He points out the new Iranian government’s assertion that "Gholam Shakuri, the deputy to the cousin in the Qods Force who Mansour Arbabsiar allegedly telephoned, is actually a member of the Mujahedin al-Khalq.”

Notifying that he is neither a supporter of Islamic Republic nor a supporter of Mujahedin khalq, he asserts that US intelligence fails to have enough information on the MKO. As he calls it "an elaborate hoax", he criticizes the American Intelligence agencies and media for being confused by the MKO propaganda. He believes:
”It would be useful for the Islamic Republic to provide some proof to the allegation, but at the same time it would behoove the Department of Justice and Department of State to disprove the Iranian claim. Certainly, we can add a lack of information about Iranian MKO members to the list of our intelligence failures regarding Iran."

Regarding the MKO’s previous baseless forged claims on Iran Rubin concludes:
"It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It would not be the first time the Mujahedin al-Khalq has forced intelligence agencies and the press to scramble with an elaborate hoax. And, even if the evidence against the Islamic Republic is overwhelming, the fact that Iranian leaders can seize on past Mujahedin al-Khalq fabrications is ample reason not to trust anything the MKO says today either, no matter how many American and European officials are willing to embrace them.”

October 24, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Mek efforts to Make Anti-Iranian scenario Believable

Since the story of American accusing Iran of planning to assassinate the Saudi envoy in Washington, we can find more clues about the involvement of MeK lobbies which are connected with Israel in this scenario, and as the time passes, this alleged plot becomes more unbelievable and it is faced with more questions.
One of the reasons that reveal the role of terrorist group MeK in this story is their great efforts to make it believable.

Yesterday, Alireza Jafarzadeh, MeK spokesman in Washington, attended among supporters of this terrorist group in National Press Club in Washington to make a journalistic scenario about arrangement of the Qods Force. But the main purpose of this meeting was trying to make believable the so-called "Iranian terror plot".

Obviously, Rajavi remnants are extremely nervous and cluttered of rational questions of scholars, writers, journalists and intellectuals in America and around the world about accuracy of this scenario.

Flattering for belligerents and Zionists, Sena Bargh Zahedi, a MeK member in Paris addressed those who consider anti-Iran scenario a joke:

"If you were told before 9/11 that such an event would happen, you would find it unbelievable, too!"

As if someone one has believed the 9/11 fiction! But we can infer from this statement that the recent scenario designers have intended to assassinate Saudi envoy, which for some reasons was failed; so they have decided to broadcast it and take it to the Security Council, just for backtracking.

Disclosure of relationship between Gholam-Hossein Shakouri, the second suspect in the alleged plot, and MeK reveals another aspect of in this scenario that should be dealt carefully.

October 23, 2011 0 comments

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