The history of the MEK

Qajar Replaces Rajavi Dynasty

The worst sin that an MEK member can commit is to ask questions about Massoud Rajavi. Rajavi disappeared in March 2003 when the US invaded Iraq. It was assumed he was still holed up in Camp Ashraf – perhaps in the nuclear bunker – surrounded and protected by a hundred loyal followers. After 2011, when Camp Ashraf was emptied, his disappearance became the subject of intense speculation for many. But when Prince Turki bin Faisal delivered the coup de grace on Rajavi’s political life by offering condolences to Maryam Rajavi on his death, the question almost became irrelevant. Whether alive or dead, Rajavi’s public leadership of the MEK ended. Maryam became the de facto leader. But the dismay she showed at this announcement revealed that she wasn’t prepared for this change to be made public at this time.

Now, five years later, we can understand why. Maryam Rajavi has performed a coup to take over control of the MEK and completely eliminate every trace of Massoud. The nature of this coup became clear when Zahra Merikhi, who was re-appointed for two more years as Secretary General of the MEK, named three women as co-leaders with herself – Mahnaz Meimanat (62), Narges Azdanlou (40) and Rabiah Mofidi (39). Narges Azdanlou is Maryam Rajavi’s niece.

Narges Azdanlou (40) Rabiah Mofidi (39) Zahra Merikhi (62) Mahnaz Meimanat (62)

In addition, Merikhi named six deputy leaders – Sepideh Pourtaqi (40), Azar Akbarzadegan (39), Ashraf Abrishamchi (39), Shiva Mameqani (40), Maryam Rezaei (30) and Vahideh Nabavi (34). Ashraf Abrishamchi is Maryam Rajavi’s daughter, Azar Akbarzadegan is the daughter of Jamileh Abrishamchi, her former husband Mehdi Abrishamchi’s sister. The other women are from families loyal to Maryam and Mehdi. The ages of nearly all these women reveal that Maryam is handing over control of the MEK to a younger generation of women groomed specifically for this purpose. Individually none of them have any qualification to lead the MEK other than being appointed by Maryam Rajavi. Of course, Maryam will remain in control of the whole membership of the organisation.

six deputy leaders named by Zahra Merikhi

Vahideh Nabavi (34) Shiva Mameqani (40) Maryam Rezaei (30) Zahra Merikhi (62) Sepideh Pourtaqi (40) Azar Akbarzadegan (39) Ashraf Abrishamchi (39)

The fact that Maryam has appointed members of her own family and trusted women to take over leadership of the MEK can only be because she is confident of controlling the finances of the MEK and because she is confident there will be no threat or challenge from any family, friend, associate or ally of Massoud. Looking at events from this perspective it is clear that Maryam, her former husband Mehdi Abrishamchi and her brother Mahmoud Qajar-Azodanlu have spent the past four decades plotting and building up to this moment. The moment when the Qajar Dynasty led by Maryam Qajar-Azodanlu replaced the Rajavi Dynasty led by Massoud Rajavi in the MEK.

What I hope to reveal in this piece is the slow – perhaps surprisingly slow – but relentless process which inevitably led the MEK to this point.

When, after a failed coup, Massoud Rajavi fled to Paris in 1981, he could not have anticipated this ultimate betrayal. At that time, he was confidently gathering together a National Council of Resistance, led and controlled by himself, in anticipation of returning to Iran and forming a government. At this time, it was clear Rajavi had support from the CIA. The MEK was still led by a polit bureau of leading members, with Massoud as the spokesman. Mousa Khiabani, member of the polit bureau, later described as Rajavi’s ‘right-hand-man’, remained in Iran to lead the internal resistance. Although there was speculation that Rajavi wanted Khiabani dead, this is countered by the fact he also left his wife Ashraf Rabbii, his soulmate, and their infant son Mohammad (aka Mustafa) in Iran. On February 8, 1982, they were killed in a shoot-out with government forces in their safe house. It was later discovered that somebody had tipped off the officials. By chance, baby Mohammad survived and was sent to live with his grandparents, and later allowed to join his father in Paris.

At that time, I was operating from our base in Iranian Kurdistan. Less than a month after Mousa Khiabani was killed, Mehdi Abrishamchi – described by the MEK as Massoud’s ‘right-hand-man’ – left Iran. I was told to pick him up on the road between the cities of Baneh to Sardasht and bring him to our base. From there I passed him through Jordan to Paris. A few months later, his wife, Maryam, was brought to Kurdistan and passed via Turkey to Paris in 1982. Once in Paris, Maryam and Mehdi had a daughter, named Ashraf after Massoud’s dead wife.

Months after his wife’s death, Massoud Rajavi had married Firouzeh Bani Sadr – daughter of former president Abolhassan Bani Sadr who fled with Rajavi to Paris in 1981 – in what was assumed to be a political alliance. Firouzeh was very young and studying medicine at university in Paris. A year later, I was re-called to Paris. When I arrived, I found that Maryam Abrishamchi had rapidly installed herself as head of Massoud Rajavi’s office and had brought two other people in with her. One of these was Sharzad Sadr Haj Seyed Javadi who was the wife of her brother Mahmoud Azadonlou; they had a child Narges Azadonlou. And Hussain Rahimi, brother of Bijan, friend of the Abrishamchi family who died of cancer. I joined this team. It was also immediately obvious to me that Maryam was not going home at all and was staying with Massoud in the same room, pretending to be the housekeeper for Massoud and Firouzeh.

Maryam asked me to be responsible for Firouzeh’s security and to report all her actions. I was brought back to Paris for this task on the advice of Ebrahim Zakeri. (In Iran Zakeri had been responsible for the MEK’s intelligence work. He recruited Mohammad-Reza Kolahi and Masoud Keshmiri.) Eventually, Maryam manipulated and interfered in Firouzeh’s life to the point that she was forced to run away and in 1984 get divorced.

Meanwhile, while I was in Rajavi’s inner circle, Maryam got pregnant and with the help of Massoud’s brother, Saleh Rajavi a GP, we took her for an abortion. Soon after this, in 1985, Massoud announced the first Ideological Revolution. Maryam divorced Mehdi and married Massoud and adopted the name Rajavi to become the joint leader of the MEK. The same day, Massoud arranged for Mehdi to marry Mina (aka Azar) Khiabani, sister of Mousa, who was under his protection. She was under 18 and Abrishamchi was 38 years old.

Thus began promotion of the Rajavi brand. The chant ‘Iran Rajavi, Rajavi Iran’ was used in all gatherings, public or behind closed doors. The name Rajavi became etched into every member’s consciousness. The polit bureau was no more. To establish his leadership, Massoud began to eliminate anyone who he judged to be a threat or rival. He instigated internal court cases in which he was both prosecutor and judge. Members who did not accept his Ideological Revolution and Maryam’s position as his ideological equal were put on trial. Those who still refused to submit were denounced as traitors and condemned to execution. However, because they were in France, this could not be done. Instead, such ‘traitors’ were excommunicated and shunned, sent out of the organisation with nothing, to survive as best they could. One famous example was Parviz Yaghoubi who was one of the original members of the MEK. He was married to Ashraf Rabbii’s sister. Both were thrown out of the organisation and became destitute in Paris, even living in a park for a while. Others who resisted Massoud and Maryam’s leadership were demoted to basic tasks. For example, Mohammad Tohidi and Mohammad Ali Jaberzadeh Ansari, who were top theoreticians in MEK ideology, were demoted to write articles and papers. The only people who were trusted to stay in the leadership cadre were those chosen by Maryam not Massoud. Her former husband Abrishamchi of course, and Mohammad Mohaddessin because he proved himself loyal by spying on other members, particularly Tohidi who was head of the political section before Mohaddessin took over. Also, Ebrahim Zakeri as a trusted person. For Maryam this was not an issue of men or women, she surrounded herself with people she could trust and rely on.

In the meantime, Massoud was intent on eliminating male rivals. Ali Zarkesh, second in command of the MEK at this time, was brought from Tehran to Paris and asked to accept the marriage and leadership of Maryam. He refused and was placed under house arrest until he was sent – demoted to the rank of ordinary soldier – to the Forough Javidan operation in which he was killed. Later, the driver of Ebrahim Zakeri in that operation confessed that Zakeri had ordered him to shoot Zarkesh whenever possible. And he did. Zarkesh was not killed by Iranians but by the MEK. During the Forough Javidan operation, I was in the war room as the communications officer, passing messages between Massoud, the Iraqi command and the field. Maryam was also there and constantly talking privately to Massoud. Eventually, I passed the order to have Ebrahim Zakeri, Mehdi Abrishamchi and two other higher ranking MEK members brought back to the camp. All the others were left to be killed.

After the failed Forough Javidan operation, Massoud instigated the second Ideological Revolution. This involved married members divorcing from their spouse and every member swearing to celibacy in order to devote themselves fully to ‘the struggle’. It also involved Maryam explaining the fiction that Massoud was so far advanced in his ideology that no one in the organisation could understand him but had to go through her to reach him. What this meant in reality was to totally obey all Maryam’s orders. This also began the isolation of Massoud from the organisation. He was untouchable and unreachable. Maryam was the one the members should admire and emulate. This was compounded when Massoud and Maryam appointed Fahimeh Arvani as Secretary General of the MEK. This elevated Maryam even further.

A further phase of Maryam’s creeping control was the introduction of an all-female Leadership Council of six women and six deputies, effectively eliminating all Massoud’s friends and top MEK members by default. Members were told they must ideologically connect to one of these to reach Maryam. Again, this was about submission and obedience. There was no ‘ideology’ as such. Maryam established a regime of rewards and shunning. She gathered women members around her who were totally obedient. It didn’t matter if they were illiterate or had no skills, as long as they were willing to kill or die for her. If they didn’t obey, she would change them immediately. Although there were strong, capable and educated women such as Ozra Taleghani, Soraya Shahri, Fatemeh Tahouri, Fatemeh Ramezani and more in the MEK, Maryam ignored them and chose uneducated rough necks. Among Beheshteh Shadrou, Sedighe Hosseini, Mahvash Sepheri, Fahimeh Arvani, Mojgan Parsaii and Zahra Merikhi, only Parsaii could read or write properly.

Maryam dispensed rewards to these obedient devotees; physical, emotional and material advantages such as having a driver or cleaner; some were awarded with a male member of Maryam’s cortege like toyboys. Maryam began to groom obedient, good-looking women for Massoud to sleep with, instigating the forced hysterectomies to prevent pregnancies. The women Maryam manipulated were so deranged by her treatment that some ended up as actual torturers against dissenting members.

It is significant that although structurally the MEK was led by these women, Maryam kept several male members very close. Primarily her former husband Mehdi who has not left her side since their divorce. It is also interesting that none of Massoud Rajavi’s family were able to stay close to him and the organisation.

In addition to his son, Massoud Rajavi had several siblings who were all sympathetic to the cause. His sister in Iran was executed. His brother Kazem Rajavi, a diplomat for the Shah, had saved Massoud from execution after his arrest in 1971. Two decades later he was assassinated at his home in Switzerland in spite of tight security around him. Nobody claimed responsibility, but indications are that inside information about Kazem was used. Another brother, Ahmad was a doctor in the UK. The MEK annoyed him so much that he left without selling his house in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, escaping with his wife and kids to America. He couldn’t understand why he was subjected to such pressure and harassment. Mahmoud Rajavi, a mechanical engineer in Isfahan, came to live in Belgium. He tried to stay with the MEK but again they did enough to make him vanish and go quiet, never to be seen again. The last time I saw him, he said, ‘I wish my brother luck. Nobody in their right mind would want to be leader of the Mojahedin’.

Massoud Rajavi family

The brother who stayed closest was Saleh, a doctor in France. Because Saleh was established in Paris with friends and colleagues, he could not be manipulated in the same way as the other brothers. At first, he gave his house and land in Auvers-sur-Oise to make the MEK compound. Then he bought the house beside that. This wooden building burned down, and the insurance paid for a concrete house with anti-bullet windows and glass etc specifically for Massoud and Maryam. Saleh then bought the next neighbour’s house. Later they forced him to give half of this to the MEK as well. By this time his French wife refused to continue to stay with them and left. His son, uncharacteristically, became an addict. After this Saleh became deflated and more obedient. In the early years in France, I remember while building this concrete house we bought a jacuzzi to install for Maryam. But when she came to inspect it she got angry saying, ‘The house is in the name of Saleh Rajavi and after the revolution, when we go back to Iran, this will be his. He has milked us enough all these years. So, I don’t want him to have a jacuzzi.’ So, we had to rip it out and sell it half price. Her jealousy was so obvious she couldn’t hide it from me. At this point Saleh was eliminated, not in person, but was certainly side-lined as a close confidant. If that failed, she would certainly have had incriminating information to use against him as well.

Maryam Rajavi Family

Maryam’s family is from the Qajar dynasty which ruled Iran before the Pahlavi family. While she was in Paris, Maryam was visited from time to time by her extended family. One of these which I remember was Ali Mirza Khan, a Qajar price married to Mihandokht Ghotbi. The family lived in Germany, but he was regarded as the Qajar prince. He visited Maryam and chatted about the return of the Qajar dynasty. He said, ‘We were robbed of our rights twice. Once by Pahlavi and once by Khomeini’. After he died his son Babak, with the backing of Turkic and Azari groups and the support of the west, claimed he was the rightful king and would be taking over Iran. Babak went straight to the source of the money. He is now living in luxury in Germany, trying to annoy Iran. This is the background of Maryam and her tribe.

Perhaps the most significant indication as to Maryam and perhaps Mehdi’s intentions and ambitions can be found in the way the children were brought up. Mohammad Rajavi and Ashraf Abrishamchi were brought up by Maryam’s brother Mahmoud and his wife Shahrzad alongside their daughter Narges Azodanlou. They lived in a big mansion a ten-minute drive from Auvers. They had servants, a cook and two drivers. Whatever was needed, Mahmoud would contact me to provide it as head of security.

After Massoud and Maryam went to Iraq the children stayed in Paris and went to school there. As they were growing up they were regularly taken to Baghdad to visit their parents and then back to Paris. Once they reached their teens, the girls wouldn’t stay, but they insisted on keeping Massoud’s son in the barracks in Camp Ashraf with the ordinary rank and file. Among the rank and file were a lot of low life characters, criminals and perverts who had joined the MEK to escape justice in Iran and elsewhere. Among these Mohammad witnessed a lot of things that shocked and traumatised him. For example, the rape of underaged kids, violent fights and abuses, etc. Clearly it was planned to expose him to these horrors which the girls were spared. They said they were toughening him up but in fact they broke him.

With Mohammad living in Iraq in these conditions, Maryam brought Massoud Rajavi to accept that he’s gone mad, and something must be done with him. They isolated him in such a way he couldn’t contact his father until 2003 when they had to leave Iraq. When they brought him back with them to Paris, now a young man, he refused to stay with them and ran away. He went to Norway with the ‘help’ of supporters who are known to be in contact with Maryam. They effectively contained and suppressed him so that even though he began to write against the MEK, they managed to brand him as a ‘useless person’.

The different treatment of these children reflects the different agendas and ambitions of the adults around them. Maryam Rajavi gave responsibility for their upbringing to her brother and his wife, her close associate and sister-in-law, Shahrzad. (The luxury in which they were living reflects Maryam’s own propensity for luxury. Very few people in the MEK knew that Maryam insisted on going on holiday in Europe every year for a few weeks. Each summer I took her to the south of France and Spain with a small entourage of trusted people to look after her, such as Alireza Babakhani, Shahrzad and Mohammad Ali Tashayod. Tashayod was famous in Iran as head of the MEK’s militia after the revolution. He left Iran with Massoud. He had no particular skills but was totally trustworthy, so he was used for cleaning and cooking, etc.)

Now, four decades after the revolution, the older generation of MEK members is dying, ill and ailing. It was only a matter of time before a new generation of MEK members would need to be assigned leadership roles. In retrospect we can now see how, over time, Maryam and her inner circle have not only eliminated Massoud’s family, but they have also purged the younger generation of anyone else who might present a challenge. The sons and daughters of MEK members who were brought back into the organisation after being evacuated during the 1991 Gulf War, have been manipulated and selected for their suitability to serve Maryam’s agenda. She made sure second-generation members lose sympathy or loyalty to Massoud and his family. His picture no longer appears next to Maryam’s but has been put on a billboard along with a series of Iranian martyrs like Mohammad Mossadegh in the new camp in Albania.

Looking back over MEK history after this recent leadership announcement, it is clear that there was a deliberate attempt by Maryam Rajavi to protect and promote her family and friends in the organisation. Whether motivated by jealousy or ambition, she pushed the Rajavi family out. Her control over the MEK became almost inevitable after Massoud disappeared in 2003. The Massoud-Saddam combination became the Maryam-Faisal combination. But when Faisal announced five years ago that Massoud Rajavi was dead, it was clear she was not ready to show her hand. Whether she had not fully groomed her daughter and the other women for this role, or she had not assumed full control over the money, the time has now arrived. In effect, Maryam Rajavi has instigated a third Ideological Revolution – the Qajar Dynasty’s leadership of the MEK.

Massoud Khodabandeh, Iran Interlink,

September 21, 2021 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

Mujahedin Khalq Organization at a glance

The MEK was founded in 1965 by a group of students from Tehran University who opposed the Shah’s regime. Pahlevi’s policy of alignment with the US and westernization of the country displeased a part of the society, which saw in it a loss of its own values and traditions. It is a heterogeneous group where Marxists and Islamists are mixed, who share the idea of direct action and armed struggle as a strategy of opposition to the Pahlevi regime, according to the website MEK, they are, in the mid 60’s the main group of opponents to the Shah’s regime in Iran. They call themselves the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran or MEK (Mujahedin and Khalq).

The intellectual middle classes and the working classes, are those that nurtured militants to the MEK during the first steps of the organisation, Masud Rajavi joins in 67 in Tehran, stand out as one of the ideologists of the group. After 6 years in which political ideas are shaped and a political ideology based on a mixture of Islam and Marxism is formed, the MKO is ready to carry out its first activity.

Women fighters armed with AK-47s in the National Liberation Army of Iran stand at attention during a flag ceremony at Camp Ashraf,Wednesday Jan 29 1997, 110 kilometeres northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The fighters are dedicated to overthrowing the Islamic regime in Iran and installing a multi-party democracy. (AP PHoto/ Jassim Mohammmed)

In the early 1970s they plan their first operation, the attack on Tehran’s electricity grid. However the operation fails, the SAVAK (Sazeman e Ettelaat va Amniyat e Keshvar), the Shah’s fearsome secret police, infiltrated into the MEK’s ranks, disrupts the operation. As a result several MKO activists are arrested and three of their leaders, Mohamed Hanifnejad, Saeid Mohsen and Ali Asghar Badizadegan are executed. An international campaign led by Kazem Rajavi, exiled in Switzerland, in which, according to the MKO website, Francoise Mitterrand, among others, participates, leads to Masud Rajavi, also sentenced to death, having his sentence commuted to life imprisonment.

The SAVAK was the intelligence agency of the Shah’s government, specialized in counter-intelligence and counter-insurgency work. It was formed in the late 1950s under the supervision of the CIA and placed under the direct command of the Prime Minister, personally supervised by the Shah. During the early 1960s it infiltrated all areas of Iranian civil society, workplaces, political, social and religious organisations and universities. He carried out censorship in the media, supervised applications for jobs in the state, while monitoring universities for dissidents. One of its main targets is the Tudeh Party, Iran’s communist party, a political organisation that gained considerable strength at the state level during Mossadeq’s rule but was reduced to a residual political force throughout the country in the early 1970s. The SAVAK in the mid-1970s has almost 15,000 members and an undetermined number of informants throughout the country. However, in the face of growing social unrest against the Shah, they are forced to collaborate with the police in a new organisation, the Anti-Sabotage Committee, to coordinate the fight against political dissent.

They are again turning their attention to relevant sectors of society, infiltrating student associations and labour organisations, both trade unions and employers’ organisations, and political parties and organisations considered to be on the left, including the MEK, although they also operate against conservative parties opposed to the Pahlevi regime. At present, the SAVAK has the capacity to control Iranian students studying outside the country, arresting those who are involved in political activities, including in third countries.

It is the CIA that provides capabilities to the SAVAK for the development of this type of operation. During the years before the revolution the SAVAK dismantled most political parties and organisations, did not hesitate to imprison, torture and execute political dissidents or any citizen involved in political actions or dissidents with the Shah’s regime. The SAVAK retaliates not only against those suspected of activities, described as subversive, their families and friends are also in the sights of the fearsome secret police. Confiscations of property, withdrawal of passports, loss of jobs are some of the consequences for families of the political activity of some of their members. They operate outside the law, under the direct control of the Shah, control the streets by operating with small groups and paramilitary organisations, have their own prisons and their own powers to detain or prosecute suspects. The last prime minister of the Pahlevi government, Sapor Bajtiar, faced with the drift of the protests against the Shah, tries to limit the power of the SAVAK by purging the organisation of officers who are followers of General Nematollah Nasirí, the former prime minister, but it is too late. With the march of the Pahlevi into exile in January 1979, Bajtiar dissolved the organisation and arrested its former leaders. In September of that year, the organisation disappeared for good under the direct supervision of Ayatollah Khomeini.

In spite of the difficulties and the danger that the political activity in Iran during the 70’s supposes, the actions of the MEK follow one another, achieving a certain relevance with attacks to American companies, Pepsi-Cola, General Motors or the air company PAN-AM, and American interests in Iran, attacks where civil and military personnel of the USA stationed in the country die. Little by little, throughout the decade, all the leaders of the MEK are imprisoned or victims of the violence of the SAVAK. In 1975, while Rajavi rots in the Shah’s jails, the Mek undergoes its first political split, by the Maoist wing of the organization. With the majority of its main leaders dead or in prison, one of the groups that make up the Mek, expresses in a manifesto its abandonment of Islam and declares Marxism the only engine of the revolution. The Islamic organisations opposed to the Pahlevi dictatorship were quick to declare the entire organisation Marxist, causing the MKO to lose much support among the popular classes, who were heavily influenced by religious rhetoric. In January 1979, Rajavi was released from prison, free and recognized as the only leader of the organization. The differences with the Islamic opposition organizations become more acute when they accuse Rajavi of collaborating with the SAVAK in exchange for his freedom. Despite these accusations he leads the Mek in the protests against the increasingly weak government of the Shah, causing a chain reaction throughout the country against the absolutism of the Pahlevi.

Finally, the protests lead to the overthrow and exile of Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, putting an end to his regime and giving way to the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini. The differences with the Islamic organizations quickly surfaced, because although they coincided at first with the revolution and the processes that led to it, including the participation of the MEK in the assault on the US embassy in Tehran and the subsequent hostage crisis, since Rajavi is opposed to the release of the hostages decreed by Khomeini.

The rise to power of the ayatollahs implied the suppression of political parties, causing a definitive break with the movement led by Khomeini, until it became one of its main detractors. After the revolution, Masud Rajavi ran in the 1980 elections, his candidacy being vetoed by the Islamic organizations, so that the MEK supported the president who emerged from the first democratic elections in the country since 1951, Abol Hassan Banisadr in opposition to the PRI, the Party of the Islamic Republic of [Ayatollah]Khomeini.

The PRI, founded in 1979 by the clergymen Mohamed Javad Bahonar, Mohammad Beheshti, Akbar Hashemí Rafsanjaní, the current supreme leader of Iran, [Ayatollah]Alí Khamenei and Abdolkarim Musaví-Ardabilí, all of them very close to the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini. The PRI was the unifying element around which Khomeini’s followers gathered in the early years of the Revolution. The principles of the party were based on the Revolution as a way of coming to power and on Islam as a political ideology, in opposition to economic liberalism. One year before the end of the conflict with Iraq, with the Ayatollahs firmly in power, the party is dissolved.

After the invasion of Iran in September 1980, Baghdad begins to finance and provide arms and resources to the MEK and makes the organisation its main source of information on Iran. Months later, pressure from the PRI and the Islamists forced Banisadr to resign from his post as president, and in the first months of 1981, the Mek, the president’s main political support, went over to the opposition, declaring a return to armed struggle as a form of political activity and making the PRI its main target.

After Banisadr’s dismissal in July 1981, Masud Rajavi founded the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), as the political arm of the MKO, to bring together the opposition, including the KDPI (Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran), the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, the Union of Communists of Iran and the Workers’ Party. Days after the dismissal of President Banisadr, after an intense campaign by the Iranian government against the MEK, Banisadr and Rajavi leave Iran and go into exile in Paris. Part of the MKO militants go to Europe, a second group goes to Iraq, and finally a third group of MKO militants remains in Iran, going underground to continue the armed struggle. In the NCRI an autocratic style of leadership is quickly revealed, so that the KDPI splits from the organisation.

on August 30, 1981, a bomb attack by an MEK commando killed Iran’s new president, Mohammed Ali Rajai, and the new prime minister, Mohamed Javad Bahonar

During the summer of 1981 the MEK intensifies the attacks on high government officials, fails in its attempt to assassinate [Ayatollah]Ali Khamenei with a bomb, but on June 28, 1981 the MEK achieves one of its greatest successes, by attacking the headquarters of the PRI, killing 75 people, most of them workers. One of the dead in the attack is Ayatollah Mohammed Beheshti, number two in the Islamic Revolution after [Ayatollah]Khomeini. Two days later, on August 30, 1981, a bomb attack by an MEK commando killed Iran’s new president, Mohammed Ali Rajai, and the new prime minister, Mohamed Javad Bahonar. Rajai had taken office 15 days before the attack. That summer the MKO kills more than a hundred people.

Rajavi and Saddam

In October 1981, Rajavi meets Tarek Aziz, Iraqi foreign minister, in Paris, and, granting himself the representation of all the opposition forces in exile, he theatricalizes a peace signature between Iran and Iraq, according to Rajavi, in the name of the Iranian people. The definitive alignment of the MEK with Iraq takes place in 1983, Abol Hassan Banisadr, separates from the NCRI and with him a great number of militants tired of Rajavi’s authoritarianism and the refusal to support Sadam Hussein’s aggressor government.

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi on their wedding day

In 1985 Masud Rajavi divorces and marries Maryam Rajavi, formerly married to an MEK militant, whom he forces to divorce, according to various sources. From this moment on, both share the leadership of the organization. In 1987 the Mek was expelled from France, the terrorist actions attributed to the organisation attacked an Iranian diplomat in Madrid in the summer of that year, and the Mek’s alignment with Iraq in the conflict with Iran led to the Mek being used as a bargaining chip in the kidnapping of French citizens in Lebanon. In exchange for their release, France expelled the Mek from its territory.

The whole organisation is moved to Iraq, Saddam Hussein provides the necessary infrastructure for Rajavi and 1000 of his militants to settle in the country, military equipment, training and logistics. In exchange the MEK would be integrated as a combat force in the Iraqi army. Throughout that year, around 7000 people join the MKO in Iraq, most of them MKO militants, although some also join the opposition to the ayatollahs’ government. According to the NCRI, they remain independent of Baghdad, representing the interests of the people of Iran as the only valid interlocutors with the Iraqi government.

During the war, the MKO specialised in intelligence work and operations on both sides of the Iraqi-Iranian border, directly confronting the CGRI (Guardian Corps of the Islamic Revolution).

In Iraq Rajavi creates the ENL (National Liberation Army) as the armed arm of the MEK, it is also the moment when the organisation settles in Ashraf. It is the moment of greater collaboration with the Iraqi army, leading the attacks to localities in the border and participating in actions in which the Iraqis use massive gas attacks on Iran. On the other side of the border, the government’s efforts to break up the MKO result in arrests and executions of its militants. In early 1988, according to Human Rights Watch, nearly 2,000 of them were executed by members of the MKO, Kurdish and Tudeh militants captured on the front after Operation Mersad or Eternal Light, the last major offensive of the war, executed by the MKO with Iraqi support. In the same year, 5,000 MKO fighters took part in the battle of Kirkuk between the Kurdish rebels and the Iraqi army.

MEK allied Saddam Hussein in Suppressing Iraqi Kurds

The end of the conflict led the MKO to increase its actions towards its ally in Baghdad, deploying troops and participating in Kurdish repression in Kirkuk and at the United Nations, where the NCRI was struggling to clean up the image of the organisation. The Rajavi were multiplying by giving press conferences as part of an intense propaganda effort. At the same time, they regularly carried out attacks in Iran, operating from Iraq.

In April 1992, the MKO began a chain of attacks against Iranian embassies and interests around the world, which meant that in 1997, the US and the EU included the MKO in the list of terrorist organisations. The NCRI blamed this on a goodwill gesture by the Clinton administration towards the reformist government of Mohammed Khatami.

The MKO’s terrorist actions did not stop after the organisation was placed on the list of terrorist organisations. Between 1998 and 2002, MKO activity multiplied, so much so that in 2002 all EU countries, Canada and Australia recognised the MKO and its political arm, the NCRI, as terrorist organisations.

In 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, the US reached a ceasefire agreement with the MKO, taking control of its main camp in Ashraf and five other smaller camps established throughout Iraq, Anzali, near the Iranian border, Bonyad in Baghdad, Alavi in Kut, Faezeh in Basra and Homayoun in Amara. The MKO accused the U.S. of attacking their camps, as a concession to the Tehran government, while in France, the government was operating against MKO interests throughout the country. At that time, the MKO was a large, fully operational fighting force, with 4,000 MKO members stationed at Ashraf, including about 600 vehicles, including tanks, armoured vehicles and transport, artillery and military equipment to arm about 10,000 fighters. It is at this point that Masud Rajavi disappears, his wife assuming responsibility for leading the organisation.

Between 2004 and 2005, an investigation by the USA was initiated to determine the involvement of the MEK in terrorist acts and war crimes that could constitute crimes against humanity, giving rise to a complaint by militants of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in 2005 for war crimes against Rajavi. With the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the group lost its main source of funding and political support, and was forced to provide 2002 information to both the US and Israel on an Iranian nuclear programme, unbeknownst to the UN, detailing two facilities in Arak and Natanz for heavy water production and uranium enrichment. After obtaining this information, the United States recognized the right of the militants of the MEK in Iraq to the protection due to civilians in time of war. Until 2009, when the MKO camps came under the control of the Iraqi government, ELN members continued to train as military units preparing for combat, leading to clashes with the Iraqi armed forces between 2009 and 2013. In 2010, the Iraqi government evacuated Camp Ashraf, relocating MKO militants and their families near Baghdad’s international airport to a new camp called Hurriya or Camp Liberty, where the MKO says there are clashes and numerous crimes against its militants by the Iraqi army and allied Shi’a militias. Tehran is of course accused of instigating these attacks. In the same year, the Iraqi High Criminal Court requested Rajavi’s arrest on the basis of overwhelming evidence of the MKO’s involvement, among other operations, in the 1991 crackdown on Kurdish rebels. Again, despite the evidence, in September 2012, the US State Department removed the MKO from the list of terrorist organisations. According to the State Department, several factors were taken into account, including the MKO’s quick disposition towards a ceasefire in 2003, the resettlement and evacuation of its base in Ashraf, as well as an alleged renunciation of violence. Human Rights Watch attributes this to the organisation’s intensive lobbying of Western governments and political bodies. This decision was decisively influenced by the support of the group by prominent US politicians such as former governors Howard Dean and Edward Rendell or the former mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, who from 2009 to 2012 actively participated in a campaign to remove the MKO from the list of terrorist organisations, influencing the US, the EU and the rest of the countries that had declared the MKO and the NCRI to be terrorist organisations.

US-Delisted MEK Terrorists Still Openly Committed to Violence

In mid-2013, the MEK, under the umbrella of the NCRI, established a headquarters in the US, as a key pillar of the campaign to launder and clean up an organisation which, as we have seen, had not given up its weapons and for which there was more than enough evidence of its terrorist activities. In early 2017, Giuliani put pressure on President Donald Trump, urging him to recognize the NCRI as representatives of the Iranian exile and to open talks between this group and the US government. As part of the support that the Trump administration has given to the MEK, in 2017 one of the guests of honor at the NCRI congress was John Bolton, the other was Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, former ambassador to London and Washington, who during his speech gave condolences to Maryam Rajavi, implying the death of Masud Rajavi. In June 2018, Giuliani was the star guest at the NCRI congress in France. He accused the Iranian government of being Marxist, terrorist and a sponsor of terrorism, recognized the NCRI as the resistance of the people of Iran, and insisted on the need for more belligerent policies against Tehran. Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and former presidential candidate, another active militant in the cause of the MKO, also spoke at this conference.

MEK was not embraced but imposed on Albania in 2016

Finally, in 2016 the MEK is relocated to Albania, in a camp near Tirana, after an agreement reached in 2013 between Barack Obama and Sali Berisha. According to the Balkan Post, the agreement included the construction of a de-radicalisation centre for MKO fighters from Iraq. According to this source, in reality the camp where the MKO militants have been resettled serves as a military training camp, where security is provided by the organisation and the Albanian government has no jurisdiction. The establishment of the MKO militants in Albania has created more than a few frictions between the Iranian and Albanian governments, the last disagreement following the death of Qasem Soleimani, when Iran called Albania a small and sinister country, an instrument in the hands of the USA, where the enemies of Iran hide, due to the presence of the MKO in its territory, where it has been settled since 2016. It has not gone beyond a mere exchange of declarations and accusations between Ilir Meta and Hassan Rohani, but it can be descriptive of the extent to which the MKO conditions Iran’s relations with third countries. According to Albanian media, the EU even looks at the presence of the MKO in Albania with suspicion.

During the first years of political action, the MKO shapes a political ideology dominated by two ideas, Islam and Marxism. Although God created the world, he also enlightened human beings so that through lessons as the powerhouse of history they would be able to shape the world. This political idea not only confronted the Mek with the Pahlevi regime, but also with Shiite orthodoxy, which considered the Mek’s erroneous interpretation of Islam as a mere excuse to justify terrorism.

With the founding of the NCRI, Rajavi gave the first signs of his authoritarian style of leadership, which, as we have already seen, led to the departure of several organisations from the NCRI.

The MEK went from being one of the most relevant organisations of the revolution that overthrew the Pahlevi, to becoming one of the most belligerent organisations with the government of Tehran. In 1985 Masud Rajavi initiated the ideological revolution of the MKO. Rajavi’s leadership cult was promoted and he came to control all aspects of the organisation, including the control of the militants, who were forbidden to leave the organisation, to control its assets and activities and to work for the organisation, adopting a structure at the organisational level more appropriate to a sect than a political party.

With the end of the war between Iraq and Iran and the need to change the image given during the years of the war as a terrorist organisation, the Rajavi abandoned the pseudo-Marxist revolutionary Islamic ideology and embraced, in the eyes of the world, liberal democracy, but without any democratic intention. By their own definition, they oppose the struggle between atheists and Muslims that the ayatollahs’ government promotes and proclaim themselves to be defenders of democracy in Iran. Or what is the same, part of the process of changing the group’s image since the end of the war is to adopt a more friendly image for the West, separating itself from the ideological Marxism adopted by some of the original organisations that formed the MEK 20 years earlier.

The MEK is a complex organisation that responds to a multitude of different acronyms. The MEK is the original organisation, from which the different branches and denominations that make it up derive. Of the different organisations that make up the MEK, the main one is the NCRI, which is considered the political branch of the MEK and is currently based in France. They define themselves as workers for freedom and democracy and declare themselves representatives of the Iranian opposition in exile. The organisation is presided by Maryan Rajavi and is organised around five secretaries and formed by 25 committees, with the aim of planning the future of Iran. These 25 committees act, according to the organisation, as the 25 ministers of the Iranian government in exile. According to the information provided by the NCRI website, the most relevant committees are the Foreign Affairs Committee, which is in charge of influencing both the United Nations and the different governments, political parties, NGOs and organisations of certain social relevance in the countries where they operate. The women’s committee, which works on the rights of Iranian women both outside and inside Iran. Defence Committee, which acts as a sort of intelligence agency, providing information on Iran and its missile programme. Political committee, which analyses the political situation in Iran. Security and anti-terrorism, again, work on intelligence actions against Iranian infiltration of the organisation and on cyber security. It also monitors and controls all the activities of the other committees and the organisation’s militants. Cultural Committee, according to information provided by the NCRI, organises and promotes events on Iranian culture and provides shelter to all artists fleeing the regime of the ayatollahs.
Under Rajavi’s supervision, they meet regularly in a main assembly at the Paris headquarters. They are represented both in the USA and in Europe, where they have delegations not only in France but also in England and Germany.

The ENL is considered the military branch of the MEK, responsible both for the combatants and for the planning and execution of operations.

Who is Maryam Rajavi?

The president of the NCRI and the MEK is Maryam Rajavi, wife of Masud Rajavi, born in Tehran in 1953. As a student at the university, she joined the MEK along with several of her brothers. The death and torture of several of her brothers in the Shah’s prisons definitely mark Rajavi. She is elected to parliament in the first elections after the escape of the Shah from Iran, but with the dismissal of the Banisadr in 81, she goes into exile in France. In 1985, the leadership of the NCRI is reorganised, Maryam Rajavi is appointed co-secretary general of the organisation, giving rise to a two-headed leadership shared by the Rajavi couple. In 1991, she took over the sole leadership of the organisation, as such she was accused by the Iranian government of being the main perpetrator of the MEK’s involvement in the repression of the Kurds in Iraq. In 1993 she is elected president of the NCRI, at the same time, she unilaterally proclaims herself president of Iran in exile. From this moment she carries out an intense work of proselytism and publicity of the organisation all over the world, especially Europe and the USA.

Since 2003 he has been pressing for the removal of both the MEK and the NCRI from the list of international terrorist organisations. That same year the DST (General Directorate of Foreign Security) arrested Rajavi and 20 members of the organisation at the headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise, accused of keeping several million euros destined to finance terrorist actions. The mobilisation of MKO members led to a ban on MKO demonstrations by the Paris Prefecture following three attempts to immolate them in protest at the arrests. Two MKO members were arrested for incitement to suicide. This fact does not prevent Rajavi from continuing her political activity, being invited the following year to intervene in the European Parliament, where she is presented as the third option, accusing the West of acting either with a speech of appeasement towards the Ayatollahs or of constantly threatening Tehran with war. It was also in 2003 that he began to organise the MEK congresses on the outskirts of Paris, which have given the organisation so much political currency.

With the elimination of the MEK and the NCRI from the list of terrorist organisations, Rajavi focused his political activity on presenting the organisation as the legitimate representatives of the Iranian diaspora in exile, with very intense publicity campaigns and pressure on both governments and political parties to recognise the organisation as representing the Iranian opposition. Since 2016 it has been leading a campaign to condemn the Iranian government for the executions of MEK members during the conflict with Iraq, accusing Tehran of genocide.

Despite this, both in the US and in Europe, the MKO remains an organisation that is viewed with suspicion, several agencies and law enforcement bodies have accused the organisation of sectarian practices, encouraging the cult of leaders among themselves or, as a 2009 Rand report states, practices such as compulsory daily community confession, celibacy, authoritarian practices, forced labour, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, confiscation of property, isolation and confinement of dissidents take place within the organisation. It is noted that during the time that the MKO was integrated into the Iraqi army, the children of combatants in the front line were sent away from their parents to be educated by the organisation and when they reached the age considered appropriate to fight and complete their training, they were returned to their parents to serve as soldiers. This same RAND report in its conclusions indicates that about 70% of the MEK members in Ashraf were forcibly recruited. Similarly, a Human Rights Watch report on the MKOE denounces frequent cases of torture in Ashraf.

Over the past few years they have whitewashed their image and blurred their past as a terrorist organisation, in order to present themselves to other Western organisations and political parties as representatives of the political opposition to the Tehran government. The removal of the MKO from the list of terrorist organisations in the US and the EU has been controversial, as there is no evidence that the MKO has abandoned the armed struggle, and there is no evidence of intensive international image whitewashing. According to Tehran, the change in the US and the EU with respect to the MKO as a terrorist organisation is due not only to the profound work of whitewashing the organisation’s image, but also to bribes paid to politicians, parties and institutions in Europe and America.

The truth is that the abandonment of the armed struggle as a form of political opposition has been determined by the change of political regime in Iraq, its main support, after the US invasion in 2003, and the support given to the organisation by prominent US political figures, who see in the MKO a tool to force regime change in Iran, or at least the way to show the face of political opposition to the Ayatollahs. The NCRI frequently proselytizes in the US and Europe in order to attract funding and support among the political classes, most notably the interventions in events during 2015 and 2016 by Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation of the US Government, for which they have spent nearly 70,000 dollars.

At a local level they operate with similar organisations, through which they organise different events and where they solicit contributions for the Iranian opposition in exile, such as the Iranian-American Cultural Association of Missouri, Iranian-American Community of Northern or The Society of Iranians professionals in California, USA. In England, they have used the white label Iran Aid.

A common practice to attract funding comes from the families of MEK fighters in Europe and the USA, where under the cover of the Iranian diaspora, they form this type of association or organisation, where the MEK is never named, and which through different acts and events collect donations destined for the opposition in exile, which finally end up in the hands of the MEK. Another source of funding is donations from the families that are part of the MKO or from the families of MKO combatants, who, as we have seen, are forced to send their children away from the front, generally Iraq, so that the organisation can take charge of their education. In return, these families make donations to finance the MKO. In most Western countries the MKO cannot apply for or raise funds under this name or any of the other names it uses for the organisation. In Germany they have raised funds under the guise of refugee aid involving even political parties, which otherwise would not have collaborated with the MKO, such as the Greens. In the same way, under the cover of aid to Iranian refugees, they have operated to raise funds from individual donors to whom they promise anonymity, without specifying that these donations go into the coffers of the MKO.

Throughout its history, the MKO has used a variety of names and denominations, MKO, NCRI, ELN…in Iran they are popularly referred to as monafeghin, the hypocrites or the sect. It is considered a blasphemous organisation in which the leader, Rajavi, is worshipped. They accuse the Rajavi of appointing themselves president of the Iranian government and head of the armed forces, and censure the presence of women as combatants in the ranks of the MKO, since part of the MKO’s ideology emphasises the role that women play in the organisation, including during the war between Iraq and Iran, the presence of women in the front line of combat. They consider MKO members to be unthinking machines, and women initiated into the cult of the Rajavi to be sex slaves.

The MEK ( Mujahedin-e-Khalq MEK MKO ) is not very well established in the country, and its leaders have, as we see, little or no consideration in Iranian society, despite this they operate internally in hiding and have first-hand information about the country. Their historical leader, Masoud Rajavi, is still missing and so far it has not been possible to determine whether he is alive, in hiding, as declared by the MEK in 2011, or dead, as suggested in 2017 by Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, and what the causes of his disappearance have been. What is certain is that since 2003 he has been placed in many different scenarios, dead in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, arrested by the US and then transferred to Bahrain, arrested by the Jordanians and handed over to the US, or in hiding in Paris, where he is sure to meet with Obama.

Tehran holds the organisation responsible for the death of nearly 12,000 Iranian citizens around the world. The abandonment of the armed struggle has reduced, theoretically to a minimum, the military capacity of the organisation, because as we can see the capacity to finance and recruit new members is increasing, to which we can add the tolerance with which some western countries treat the MEK, especially the US. For the US, even more so at this time, when the confrontation with Iran is a matter of the first order, supporting, or at least not bothering too much an organisation like the MKO, may be a reasonable option in order to destabilise the government of Tehran.

Before taking office in the Trump administration, John Bolton testified at the MEK Congress in France in 2017:

“There is a viable opposition to the leadership of the ayatollahs and that opposition is meeting in this room today”.

Luis Illanas García, Atalayar.com, Spain

March 4, 2021 0 comment

The MEK to launch Armed Struggle

MKO’s Unproductive Means of Struggle

In Iran’s contemporary history, Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO,MEK, PMOI, NCRI, NLA) is the exact illustration of a political movement that strongly advocated a strategy of armed struggle that has proved defeated and unproductive. A review of its function in the course of all these years well depicts the clear and basic controversy between its organizational instructions and that Iran’s social-political conditions. They were moving on a wrong path from the very beginning but kept pretending an avant-garde of a struggle manner that people disapproved. It is always people, however, who have paid the heavy price of the factions’ deviation and dogmatism in the accomplishment of their ambitions.

Nearly four decades ago, Mohammad Hanif-Nezhad along with a number of other students, formerly active in National Front, came together to establish an organization that has so far moved in a struggle path totally different from other previously established armed movements like Sazman-e Cherikhai-e Fedaye Khalq (People’s Devoted Militia Organization). Approved by the leaders of many pro-Marxist militias, none of the armed struggle moves in the process of Iran’s political and social fluctuations has proved to be productive and MKO has been no exception. Compared with its parallel armed groups, MKO seem to have suffered a more pitiful and deplorable destiny after selling itself to liberalism and imperialism.

The group’s past history is intermingled with a variety of different and controversial phases. It received two devastating internal and external blows, namely, the ideological split and mass arrests by monarchical regime’s notorious SAVAK. In both circumstances, the organization nearly lost 90 percent of its insiders, but a passing look over its activities, from its inception to the Islamic revolution, evidentially indicate that it had had no influential impact on social milieu and ambiance.

In contrast to the group’s baseless analyses claiming to have played a crucial role in Iran’s contemporary political history, in many cases it acted as a deterrent trying to misconduct the justly guided march of people to achieve their right wants. The armed move that MKO announced against the will of nation to overthrow the Islamic Republic proved to be a total failure; the outcome was a bloodbath targeting many innocent civilians and officials. In contrast to the group’s baseless analyses claiming to have played a crucial role in Iran’s contemporary political history, in many cases it acted as a deterrent trying to misconduct the justly guided march of people to achieve their right wants

The MKO’s first attempt to create a military spectacle the same as Fedayan’s daring operation of Siahkal failed, that is to say, its plan to disrupt the 1971 celebrations surrounding the 2500th anniversary of the Persian monarchy. In fact, although it was an attempt to win the control and leadership of the armed struggle, but the armed strategy in itself was in no way justifiable. The historical necessity of the armed struggle at the time was still a big question; yet, the important point was the influence of the rising tide of the guerilla struggles.

Mojahedin were imitators of Fedayan militia who also imitated the guerilla and armed activities of other countries like Algeria, Cuba, and Vietnam. The strategy heavily influenced by the struggling experiences of the guerillas in those countries was in absolute contradiction to Iranian social, cultural, and religious context.

Moreover, Fedayan were under the heavy influence of Marxism and were running on a path to corroborate the theoretical and philosophical aspects of Marxism while Mojahedin believed they were holding an ideological supremacy over other leftist rivals. Mojahedin were basically formed according to the left parties’ structure. Ideologically, the organization was under the heavy influence of the National Front’s scientific theory. Thus, Mojahedin and other active rivals advocating armed strategy against Shah, actually distanced from the main objectives of the armed struggle aimed to prepare a background for the masses to rise and join the struggle. The armed struggle, under the pretext of fighting against Shah’s tyranny, turned into a battle of the ideologies. Well aware of the fact that they were all walking in a wrong path, none of the sides dared to make a rational critique of the strategy; the discouraging factor was being labeled as compromisers. That is to say, if anyone made an appeal to justify that the objective conditions were inappropriate for revolution, he would be labeled a compromiser, reformist, opportunist, and lacking the needed political courage.

Disregarding the role of people in struggle and insistence on armed strategy as well as imposing its ideological dogmatism has raised big questions, after the Islamic revolution, over its formation and the cause for its existence. The motivation and the real objectives of the main founders, among whom faithful, devoted ones existed, have also encountered a big question mark. Mojahedin’s change of guideline aiming to assume power at all costs led it to an absolute ideological drift and, consequently, to the precipice of being dependant on imperialism. The heavily advertised glories of its past military achievements evaporated soon after its collusion with Saddam, an archenemy of Iran, its transmission into a cult, and its direct beg of support from the US to overthrow the Islamic Republic.

January 8, 2009 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Who is the MEK?

Who is the MEK? Why are they protected in Iraq? (Part one)

The War on Terror. The Iraqi occupation. The neoconservative idealist notion of liberating the Middle East. Regime change in Iran. All of the points reach a nexus with the Mujahideen-e Khalq [MEK], an anti-Iranian regime Foreign Terrorist Organization in Iraq with US backing. In this first entry in a three-part series, I explore the history of the MEK and its protection by American forces in Iraq.

Background and history

Origin

The Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), also known as the People’s Mujahideen of Iran, are a revolutionary political extremist group that dates back some 40 years. The MEK was founded an anti-Islamist rule organization which has sought a ‘people’s revolution’ in the nation of Iran since its inception in 1965. The founders of the MEK were intellectuals at Tehran University who strongly opposed the rule of the Shah in the 70s, espousing a secular, Marxist ideology. The MEK has a military faction called the National Liberation Army (NLA), and is also affiliated with the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). In addition to the MEK, the NLA and the NCRI, numerous front organizations are also led by husband-and-wife Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. During the early 70’s, the MEK were responsible for the following assassinations of Americans:

• June 2, 1973: Lt. Colonel Lewis L. Hawkins

• May 21, 1975: Air Force Colonel Paul Schaeffer

– Air Force Lt. Colonel Jack Turner

• August 28, 1976: Donald G. Smith

– Robert R. Krongrad

– William C. Cottrell

The MEK also assisted and endorsed the occupation of the US Embassy in Tehran and hostage taking.

The Flight to Iraq

The MEK played a role in the 1979 Iranian Revolution . In 1981, the MEK bombed the offices of the Islamic Republic Party, murdering 70 senior Iranian officials. Countless arrests, executions of MEK members and the closure of MEK locations, led the MEK to flee to Iraq in order to enlist in the Iran-Iraq war of the 80’s. In 1986, the MEK established its permanent headquarters in Iraq, with Saddam Hussein as its main source of funding. The [MEK] was used by Hussein to quell internal uprisings, especially the Shiite and Kurdish uprisings in 1991. “They were worse than the Iraqi army, because they weren’t Iraqs,” said Muhsim Ali Akbar, a Kurdish official in Khanaqin, where the MEK sent tanks. “They didn’t care.”

Iranian perception of the MEK

“Though many Iranians take issue with their clerical rules, [MEK] members are widely seen as traitors, as they fought alongside Iraqi troops against Iran in the 1980s.”

“The message of a dozen former militants interviewed…is that the [MEK] is no longer deemed a critical threat by the Iranian regime.”

Inside Iran and throughout the Middle East, the MEK are known by critics as the Monafeqin (hypocrits), a derogatory reference to Mujahideen.

Shortly before the recent presidential elections, 150 protestors demonstrated outside the governor’s office, waving flags and chanting ‘Death to hypocrites.’ “Based on intelligence we’ve received, a network was trying to create problems before the election,” said Ali Aghamohammadi, spokesman for Iran’s National Security Council. Included in the pre-election disruptions were the bombs that killed eight outside of Iranian government offices. “In Tehran, it’s only the MEK who have the operational power to launch something like this.”

Iranians typically see the contradictory ideals of the MEK and its appeal as more of a cult than an organized, coherent political movement. HRW reports, “The level of devotion expected of members was on stark display in 2003 when the French police arrested Maryam Rajavi in Paris. In protest, ten [MEK] members and sympathizers set themselves on fire in various European cities; two of them subsequently died.”

MEK makes the FTO list

In 1997, the State Department included the MEK on its list of FTOs (foreign terrorist organizations). The EU and the UK have also included the MEK in their FTO lists. To this day, the MEK remains on the US FTO list, despite attempts by Congress and neoconservatives to drop their terrorist status. Anthony Cordesman, former national security advisor and Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies:

“It’s a group that has attacked and murdered Americans…. But it has always been able to persuade people who don’t know about the region that it is more democratic than it really is.”

Recent activities

Recent attacks

In 1998, the assassination of the director of Iran’s prison system, Asadollah Lajevardi. In 1999, the assassination the deputy chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, Ali Sayyad Shirazi. More recently, the MEK has carried out a series of mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids against Iranian government buildings in 2000 and 2001, killing the Iranian Chief of Staff. Also in 2000, a mortar attack on President Khatami’s palace in Tehran.

“The notable exception [to recent MEK attacks against the Iranian regime] is the simultaneous attacks conducted by the MEK in April 1992 on Iranian embassies in eleven countries, in retaliation for the bombing of MEK bases in Iraq by the Iranian Air Force just days earlier.”

Arrests & transfers

“Seven Iranians were arrested in 2001 in the US after $400,000 was found to have been transferred to a MEK front organization in the United Arab Emirates, which the FBI claims was ultimately used to buy weapons.”

“Last summer [of 2002], the US State Department outlawed several [MEK]-affiliated groups in the US. In June, France arrested 150 activists, including self-declaring “president-elect” Maryam Rajavi.” More than $1.3 million in MEK funds were seized. President-elect’ Maryam Rajavi remains detained at the MEK’s base in France to this day.

Early depiction in the War on Terror

On September 12, 2002, the Bush administration released its white paper on Iraq. It was similar to his speech to the UN General Assembly on the danger Iraq posed. The only concrete instance of terrorist ties to Iraq was none other than the MEK, “Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the [MEK], which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several US military personnel and US citizens.”

American protection post-Iraq invasion

“The MEK claimed neutrality in the recent Iraq war, but it in fact took active measures against invading Americans and British forces. As of March 2003, the Mujahideen maintained 16 bases in the southern central and north-central areas of Iraq. Virtually all of these came under attack during the war. The first attack took place on March 28, when RAF warplanes attacked the Habib base, situated 82 kilometers north of Basra. The base was also attacked on the following day and subsequently abandoned by the [MEK]. The Americans bombed the massive Ashraf camp (72 kilometers northeast of Baghdad) more akin to a garrison town serving as the [MEK]’s global headquarters, on March 29. Ashraf was bombed again on April 4, April 12 and April 14.”

Shortly after the airstrikes, the MEK and the US reached a cease-fire agreement. “By one count, after the recent invasion of Iraq, the [MEK] surrendered to US troops 300 tanks, 250 armored personnel carriers, 250 artillery pieces, and 10,000 small arms. Still, the group is reported to be able to continue anti-regime broadcasts into Iran.” The Iraqi army uses some of this equipment to this day.

The MEK has been a central piece in the neoconservative push for regime change in Iran. So central that the administration has refused to turn over members to Iran in exchange for five senior Al Qaeda figures, including Saad bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden, and Saif al Adl, intelligence chief. More about this scrapped exchange later.

“Apart from the obvious short-term benefit of securing protection from an armed rebel group allied with the Iraqi regime, the long-term objective of the US Government is believed to have been an attempt to preserve the only major armed opposition to the Iranian regime.”

“On April 15, 2003, the US Army signed a cease-fire permitting the MEK to keep its weapons and use them against Iranian regime infiltrators in Iraq. This deal infuriated the State Department, which then convinced the president to undo it, leading to the strange sight of US troops surrounding MEK camps on May 9, disarming [MEK] fighters and taking up positions to protect them.”

Despite frequent denials of prisoner-of-war status and eligibilty under Geneva Conventions, the US granted the MEK full coverage under the Geneva Conventions. “How is it that [the MEK] get the Geneva Convention, and the people in Guantanamo Bay don’t get it? It’s a huge contradiction,” says Ali Ansari, a British expert on Iran. “This will be interpreted in Iran as another link in the chain of the US determination to move onto Iran next.”

“We already knew that America was not serious in fighting terrorism,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said, adding that the US had now created a new category of ‘good terrorists.’ “The American resort to the Geneva Conventions to support the terrorist hypocrites is naïve and unacceptable.” On top of protections under the Geneva Convention, the US concluded that “there was no basis to charge any of them with terrorist actions” or past murders.

“But the [MEK]’s fate in unclear. While the Iraqis want it disbanded, the politically-savvy group still has support among some congressmen and Pentagon officials, who see it as a potential tool against Iran.”

August of 2003 brought the closure of MEK-affiliated offices in Washington by the State Department and the freezing of its assets. Before this, Attorney General Ashcroft had been a staunch supporter of the MEK. From October 2001 until mid-August of 2003, Ashcroft made no moves to shut down MEK-affiliated front organizations, despite a widely-publicized MEK lobbying presence in Washington. Earlier in September 2000, Newsweek reports that Ashcroft, as a Senator, sent a letter of support to the MEK which was read aloud to a cheering crowd at a MEK/NCRI rally at the UN during a protest of President Khatami. NRCI spokesman Alireza Jafarzadeh recalls that he “had several meetings with Ashcroft aides” and that he considers Ashcroft “a supporter of his group.” Also in 2000, Ashcroft would write Attorney General Janet Reno, advising her to release Mahnaz Samadi, leading spokesman for the National Council of Resistsance of Iran. Ashcroft wasn’t alone in his support for the MEK. In part two, I’ll cover the widespread support and misinformation rampant among Congressmen and neoconservatives focused on toppling the Iranian regime.

In October of 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to remind him that the MEK were US ‘captives, not allies.’

In November 13, 2003, Condoleezza Rice clarified the US’ role as protector and regulator of the MEK, “I just want to be very clear that the US remains committed to preventing the MEK, which is now contained in Iraq, from engaging in terrorist activities, including activities in Iran, and its reconstitution inside Iraq as a terrorist organization.”

A month later, Paul Bremer stated, “We want to involve the UN High Commission for Refugees in settling the [MEK] in three countries,” which the Iraqi government would determine. On December 9, the Governing Council ruled to deport the MEK. Two days later, members Nurredin Dara suggested sending them back to Iran, a move the MEK said would amount to a war crime.

Also towards the end of 2003, the Iraqi Governing Council orders the MEK to leave Iraq by the end of the year and end its ‘black history’ in Iraq. Pentagon officials do not want the MEK to disband and keep the MEK in Iraq.

In early 2005, some 250 members of MEK return to Iran from Camp Ashraf under custody, receiving amnesty by the Iranian government. The over 3,500 MEK members that remain in Camp Ashraf call those who leave ‘quitters.’

In June of 2005, Scott Ritter revealed that the MEK had already begun CIA-backed actions against the Iranian regime. Ritter points to increased US concentration in Azerbaijan in order to conduct short air strikes and pilot-less drones flying over Iran on recon missions. Iran has, of course, not shot down these crafts so as not to give the US a reason for an attack.

If war with Iran is inevitable due to the pressure of the neoconservative faction, it will begin as a covert war. A covert war that will possibly instigate something much more severe.

In part two, I delve into the stateside support of the MEK. Some members of Congress and many neoconservatives have rallied behind the MEK as a force for toppling the Iran regime. Similarly, I address the role of various MEK front organizations in recent media disinformation campaigns. Lastly, I conclude with the pursued deal with Iran to receive Al Qaeda members for members of MEK.

Daily KOS Website

September 8, 2005 0 comment