We are only half way through January and the EU terrorism list (from which the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation has been removed) has still not been announced but the MKO (aka the Rajavi cult, MEK, NCRI, NLA) has been unable to refrain from showing its true nature.
Iraq’s National Security Advisor has reported the arrest of an MKO member who is currently in custody after surrendering himself to an Iraqi security unit. The man, who is a resident of Camp Ashraf, was about to perform a suicide mission, but could not go through with it. According to a statement from the office of the National Security Advisor, the MKO member has claimed the MKO use severe torture and brainwashing on its members. He claims that: “I was sent with a clear and precise plan to perform a suicide mission in this Iraqi base”.
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=5720
This news will come as no surprise to those who know the MKO. Looking at Massoud Rajavi’s track record over thirty years, nothing more or less than this could be expected. While he was able to send over 2,000 civilians their deaths back in 1988 in the failed Eternal Light operation, he has since then sent numerous smaller groups to perform suicidal terrorist attacks in Iran with the added instruction that if captured the person should use their cyanide pill to kill themselves. More recently, MKO were instructed to set fire to themselves to protest the arrest of Maryam Rajavi on terrorism charges in Paris. Two died and several others sustained serious injury with their permanent disfigurement and disability a direct result of Rajavi’s order.
Massoud Rajavi who owns the MKO also owns the blood of the members and will spill it whenever he needs to. In this case to rescue himself from the mess he has made in Iraq. The MKO members are his capital which buys him power. They are expandable assets which have been used and reused shamelessly by western agencies who have found this a useful and cheap resource in their ‘regime change’ armoury. It is clear that the neoconservatives and Zionists are using the MKO against the Iraqis, and are helping them by facilitating the impunity enjoyed by MKO leaders at the cult’s headquarters in Europe.
This latest fiasco in the Rajavi saga is surely the result of negligence and apathy of the European Union toward the MKO which apparently couldn’t summon the energy or interest to properly investigate the MKO and deal with it accordingly. A feat which has been assiduously performed by successive US Governments since 1994 and which has resulted in the MKO retaining its terrorism designation to date with the added information that the group is a cult. However, the Bush Administration has also proved itself to be overly greedy in wanting to have their cake and eat it. The US army has ‘protected’ this ‘terrorist’ outfit for five and a half years in Iraq in spite of repeated demands by the Iraqis for removal of this known FTO, which collaborated with the former regime, from Iraqi territory.
It is surely time for the international community as represented by the UNHCR and UNCHR to to help the Iraqis ensure that all the individuals held captive in Camp Ashraf are accorded their basic human rights. Rajavi’s victims must be given the opportunity to renounce violence and to leave Camp Ashraf for third countries or to accept voluntary repatriation to Iran. Any delay in dismantling this notorious cult is to condemn the inhabitants to enforced membership of an illegal paramilitary terrorist group.
The MEK’s terrorist activities
“An Iranian resistance group that has been living in exile in Iraq for decades is no longer a welcome guest in the country’’ ,Anita McNaught the correspondent of Fox News in Iraq reported on January 12th.
Ms. McNaught has based her documented report on evidences made by Iraqi Kurds who were victims of MKO’s atrocities while their cooperation with regime of Saddam Hussein to suppress Kurdish uprisings. Although, as McNaught reports “MKO denies involvement in the repression”, she cites the testimonies of Kurds including a Kurd military commander of Pishmerga who lost many forces of his battalion that was attacked by MKO, and a Kurdish researcher assured her that he has handed many secret documents of Baath Intelligence Service to Human Rights Watch; the documents show that MKO helped the Ba’ath forces to occupy Kirkuk province to resist Kurdish forces.
This two-page report of Anita McNaught gives some evidences on the terrorist nature of the MKO and as she quotes from Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group MEK “acquired its reputation as the ruthless tool of a thuggish regime.”
Finally she concluded with the viewpoint of a Western diplomat:”there is nothing we lose from Camp Ashraf except a huge headache and taxpayer dollars.”, as the reason of MEK’s expired role for the West.
Now that Fox News has too much evidence on the terrorist activities of MKO agents at least in Iraq. There is a question: why does Fox News hire AliReza Jaafarzade, the official member of MKO, as the foreign affair analyst?
Jaafarzade has never denounced his membership in MKO and has always advocated MKO’s cause in his so-called analysis on Fox News programs.
Why such a contradiction in Fox News’ policy?
Mazdak Parsi
As an organization designated FTO by the Department of State and as it is no more useful for the West, the only use of Jaafar Zade’s propaganda on FoxNews is to deceive the MKO members who are captured in Camp Ashraf, Iraq and Camp Maryam, France. Because they have no free access to the mass media, they only can view the Medias filtered by the cult leaders.
Therefore , the systematic propaganda of MKO on TV channels including FoxNews is an effort to keep the members hopeful to an uncertain future.
An Iranian resistance group that has been living in exile in Iraq for decades is no longer a welcome guest in the country and may have no choice but to return to Iran, where some of its members fear they could be tortured and possibly executed as traitors.
Some 3,400 members of the militant group the Mujahedin-e-Khalq — the People’s Mujahadeen of Iran, or MeK — have lived at Camp Ashraf, a 14-square-mile base north of Baghdad, since Saddam Hussein invited them there in 1986.
But the current Iraqi government, which took control of national security on New Year’s Day, has made it clear that it wants the MeK out. The government is unmoved by a sustained international campaign by the group that has included demonstrations and sit-ins in Washington and Geneva, Switzerland.
The MeK was founded in Iran in the 1960s, when it organized as a group opposed to the rule of the Shah. For more than two decades, it carried out a campaign of bombing and sabotage against the Iranian government, including the killing of U.S. citizens working in Iran in the 1970s, which led it to be designated an international terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.
The MeK cooperated briefly with the clerical regime that overthrew the Shah in the Islamic Revolution, but then it turned against the nation’s new religious leadership, as well.
Despite its history of violence and its official designation as a terrorist group, some U.S. officials have been sympathetic toward the MeK because of the potential that it could be used as a card against Iran. But now that the Iraqi government wants the MeK to leave Iraq, the group’s designation as a terrorist organization is preventing other countries from offering its members a new home, and they fear they may have no choice but to return to Iran.
On Jan. 1, during a visit to Iran, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki re-stated his government’s position:
"Iraq is determined to put an end to this organization because it is affecting relations between Iran and Iraq. This organization participated in many operations that harmed Iranian and Iraqi civilians under the Saddam regime."
Al-Maliki was referring to evidence that the MeK collaborated with the government of Saddam Hussein, particularly during the Kurdish uprising in 1991 when thousands of Kurds were massacred. The MeK denies involvement in the repression and cites supporting statements from, among others, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
Hopes had risen among MeK members and their overseas supporters that they had found a means of remaining in Iraq when the U.S. Embassy said on Dec. 27 that American forces would "maintain a presence at Camp Ashraf … to assist the government of Iraq in carrying out its assurances of humane treatment of the residents."
"It means the United States has recognized its responsibility to ensure the safety and security of our people in Ashraf," said Ali Safavi, an official of NCRI, political wing of the MeK.
But the U.S. government no longer considers MeK members in Iraq to have the protected-persons status the U.S. gave them in 2003, and is privately supportive of Iraqi government efforts to encourage the residents to leave.
The U.S. also doesn’t have the final say, as the Iraqi government assumed responsibility for all detainees on Jan. 1 under the terms of the Security Agreement.
The MeK once had the finest tank division in Iraq and harbored hopes of leading a resistance army back into Iran to topple the Tehran government. But it was disarmed in 2003 by Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, then of the 4th Infantry Division, who put U.S. guards on the gate.
By then, the MeK had many enemies in Iraq as well as in Iran.
Nabaz Rasheed Ahmed, 61, a commander of the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in 1991, said MeK forces attacked his battalion in Chiman, Kirkuk province, in 1991.
"Mujahideen fighters who were backed by Iraqi army helicopters and tanks attacked my battalion in March 29, 1991. They killed many of my Peshmergas and wounded a lot, including me," he said.
The military architect of that uprising was Neywshirwan Mustafa, 64, who now is chairman of the powerful Kurdish media group Wusha Corporation. When told that the MeK denied helping Saddam in his crackdown on the Kurds, Mustafa said:
"That is not true. They were working in cooperation with the Iraqi Army…. They attacked many bases belonging to the PUK.
"They occupied the road from Kanar to Kirkuk. They occupied a hospital in Kanar. They killed a doctor and many other civilian people. Saddam Hussein was protecting them in Iraq".
Abdullah Safir, 59, a Kurdish English teacher who lives in Kifri, in Kirkuk Province, says he was there when the MeK mobilized against his town in 1991.
"I knew they were opponents of the Iranian regime at the time. I did not expect them to intimidate people in a country in which they were guests, and to interfere in internal issues."
Safir recalled how the MeK shelled Kurdish towns "at random," took locals hostage, and in one incident attacked a busload of young people from Kifri, killing all 20. He remembers seeing some of the bodies when they were brought home and said that one or two had been run over by MeK tanks.
Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group, which analyzes the causes of conflict, has also investigated the MeK’s role in Iraq.
"The MEK has yet to own up to its intimate relationship with the Saddam regime, which protected it and deployed it against its enemies when this served its purpose," Hiltermann said. "It thus acquired its reputation as the ruthless tool of a thuggish regime."
Shorsh Haji, a researcher on Kurdish issues who lives in the United Kingdom, escaped from Iraq after the 1991 uprising with many Iraqi secret police documents and worked with New York-based Human Rights Watch to analyze the content. He said the mukhabarat — a branch of Saddam’s intelligence service — wrote in their reports that the MeK "heroically resisted the rebels and traitors who wanted to occupy Kirkuk."
The intelligence the MeK had on Iran made them most useful to Saddam — and later, to the United States, Haji said. And that, he said, accounts for the protection the U.S. gave them at Camp Ashraf.
One MeK member told FOX News that the group gave the U.S. the names of "32,000 Iranian agents working inside Iraq." She also mentioned MeK’s purported role in revealing the extent of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, though subsequent reports support the view that Israel actually provided the information for the MeK to release.
Iraq has told the residents of Camp Ashraf that they must be gone by March of this year. It has promised they will not be forcibly repatriated to Iran, but it is not clear where else they could go.
Sources told FOX News that the Iranian government has a list of 50 "most wanted" MeK members, around 20 of whom are believed to live at the camp.
In recent years Iran has made much of a new policy of humanely "readmitting" former MeK members into Iranian society, with the help of a group of ex-members called the Nejat Society, which means "Rescue."
Behzad Saffari, legal adviser for the MeK, told FOX News: "Anyone who repents or remorses the past are welcomed by the Iranian regime and can be used against the MeK. They are a useful commodity. But anyone who goes back to Iran and still keeps the ideas of the MeK — they will be executed."
Approximately half of the residents of Camp Ashraf are under 30 years old, too young to have been part of the MeK’s fighting past.
But this may partly explain why the MeK has outlived its usefulness. A Western diplomat told FOX News: "There’s nothing we lose from Camp Ashraf except a huge headache and taxpayer dollars."
Qassim Khidhir Hamad contributed to this report
By Anita McNaught
MKO is an exiled cult-like organization that resorts to armed attacks to destabilize the government in Tehran.
The US State Department has declared that the official designation of Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group is appropriate.
In a notice published Monday in the Federal Register, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the MKO group should remain in its list of terrorist organizations.
The US announcement comes amid Iraqi government efforts to expel members of the terrorist group. Baghdad assumed control of the security of Camp Ashraf, the main MKO military base in Iraq’s Diyala province, on January 1, 2009.
The Mujahedin Khalq Organization is blacklisted by many countries, including EU member states and the United States as a terrorist organization. It relocated to Camp Ashraf from Iran after the Islamic Revolution.
Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the MKO enjoyed the support of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain, who provided the group with arms and military equipment to launch attacks against the Islamic Republic during the Iraqi war against Iran (1980-88).
The Iraqi government says the MKO has played a significant role in destabilizing the war-torn country, blaming the group for terrorist attacks within Iraq.
The recent move provoked the group to file a petition in order to take the case to the court.”We will take the case to the court and we will win,” a Paris-based spokesman for the group, Shahin Gobadi, proclaimed.
The MKO has sought to have the group removed from the list of terrorist organizations, lobbying the European parliament and officials.
Baghdad urges the expulsion or relocation of the terrorist group, saying the MKO presence at Camp Ashraf may strain its diplomatic relations with Tehran.
In addition to terrorist attacks within Iran, which claimed the lives of 12,000 civilians, the MKO helped Saddam in suppressing Iraqi Kurds.
Despite its recent widespread campaign and arranged rallies even in subfreezing temperatures of some European countries calling to be removed from the list of proscribed terrorist organizations, Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCRI, NLA) can never abandon the extremely violent strategy of armed struggle that is intermingled with its ideology. In fact, the militant infrastructure constituted the group’s started struggle against the Pahlavis monarch.
MKO started its first armed activities in August 1971; the first was a plan to blow up a main high-power electrical tower located in Sologhan, Tehran; the second was to prepare a blacklist of SAVAK agents, the ousted Shah’s notorious security system. In August 1971 the regime was preparing to celebrate the Festivities of 2500 years of Iranian Monarchy. Not following the line of the main Iranian cleric leaders, particularly Ayatollah Khomeini, MKO were inspired by their opposition moves and position takings against some decisions made by the regime. In respect to the Festivities, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a statement to boycott the regime’s glorification of monarchy. It gave MKO an opportunity to think of its first daring armed action that could really shock the regime. As Hanifnezhad stated at the time; “Now that an eminent clergy has boycotted the festivities, it would be too bad to sit immobilized. We do have to do something. If God willing, we torch the celebration. (1)
Had the group succeeded, it could have been a great achievement because the damage would cause outages in gusts’ residence as well as in the performance of the celebration itself. However, SAVAK agents were already waiting for the saboteurs at the place and arrested four Mojahedin members before they could realize what was happening. It was more because a second armed party had tried the same plan the previous night and the regime had kept the report censored to avoid expansion of panic and disturbance:
The team was aware not in the least that the Fedayan (Devoted) Militant had sabotaged the high-power tower on the previous night causing it to slant a little. The security forces had swarmed all over the religion and trapped the team that was arriving in a car; the engineer Samavati, Alireza Tashayyod, Mohammad Seyyedi Kashani, and Nabi Moazemi were all captured. (2)
The organization’s next the so-called spectacular feat, although lacking a military nature, was to prepare a blacklist of SAVAK agents. The importance lies in the fact that the regime tried to withhold the identity of its security forces from the public while it was curtail for the dissident groups to keep a watchful eye on the agents in their vicinity if they were to accomplish their armed activities. Having no access to SAVAK’s authentic information files, Mojahedin gathered the needed information from any possible source such as the media. An information team had the responsibility to obtain the needed information to synthesize them into a whole complete body.
Despite all its maneuvering feats and attempts, no sooner had Mojahedin Khalq started their armed action than the SAVAK struck the great blow that shattered the organization and eliminated more than half of its cadres. After the mass arrests, some free members, who had escaped arrest, planned to kidnap Prince Shahram, Shah’s nephew, with the hope of exchanging him for the arrested cadre awaiting their execution. They had decided to take Prince Shahram to the airport and fly to Libya along with the released prisoners where they would set the Prince free.
The kidnapping operation, however, failed and the kidnappers fled, notwithstanding the precisely made calculations. Later on, the kidnapper team was arrested and the plotters revealed to be Hanifnezhad, Ali-asghar Badizadegan, and Rasoul Meshkinfam. Thus, MKO’s first activities of violence and terror turned out to be complete failure that caused the arrest and execution of all its leaders but Rajavi who closely aligned himself with SAVAK.
When SAVAK arrested the cadres and seized their safe-houses, it issued an analytical report pointing to a number MKO’s weaknesses that led to its breakdown, including:
– The hierarchical order of the relation between the ranks was not yet fully developed. In general, the organization did not benefit from a well-developed echelon.
– The members did not live in secret and performed their organizational orders under their ordinary tasks.
– The members identity was not kept secrete from the others.
– The documents and the arms were not kept and stored with extreme caution.
– The arms were not distributed among the members and, expect in some cases, they were not trained for sabotage operations. (3)
The Islamic Revolution, however, set the remnants of MKO free from prison. Now they had free access to SAVAK’s secrete files to learn about their past mistakes and correct them. They learned how to reorganize violent and terrorist plots rather than reviewing their ideology to clean it of malignancies. Just when they found the opportunity to carry out their first terrorist operation, they proved to be talented trainees that had outstripped their trainers.
References:
1. Maysami, lotfullah; from the Movement to Mojahedin, p. 387.
2. Maysami, lotfullah; those who have gone, p. 41.
3. Ruhani, Hamid; Khomeini’s Movement, vol. 3, p. 635.
Argentine envoy pledges justice for AMIA bombing
MONTREAL — The Argentine government is determined to finally get to the bottom of the notorious bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires 14 years ago, the country’s consul general in Montreal said.
Pictured at the AMIA commemoration are, from left, Argentine Consul General Guillermo Tagino, Cote St. Luc Mayor Anthony Housefather, Hampstead Mayor William Steinberg, D’Arcy McGee MNA Lawrence Bergman and Israeli Consul General Yoram Elron.
“Our AMIA victims have imposed on us a moral mandate to respect their memory and ensure our commitment and efforts to pursue, locate and condemn those responsible,” Guillermo Tagino said at a community commemoration at Congregation Dorshei Emet, held a day before the July 18 anniversary of the attack.
“In spite of the difficulties presented by the passage of time, our will to solve this brutal crime has not diminished.”
No one has ever been convicted for the crime, but in October, 2006, Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman formally charged the Iranian government, accusing it of directing Hezbollah to carry out the suicide bombing, which nearly razed the AMIA building, killing 85 and injuring several hundred.
Last March, two former Argentine government figures held a press conference implicating members of MEK – the People’s Mujahedin of Iran – in the bombing.
Yet those events seemed to serve as a reminder of the years of alleged incompetence, obfuscation, cover-up and corruption tied to the attack’s investigation under the governments of former Argentine presidents Carlos Menem and Nestor Kirchner (the current president is Kirchner’s wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner).
At one point, Menem was even accused of accepting a $10 million (US) bribe from the Iranian government to block the investigation, a charge that was adamantly denied by Menem.
A few years ago, Nestor Kirchner himself acknowledged his government’s culpability, calling it a “national disgrace.” Over the years, those allegedly linked to the bombing have ranged from Iran and Hezbollah to members of Buenos Aires’ own provincial police, La Bonaerense.
At the synagogue, Tagino said that the Argentine government “has recognized… the state’s responsibility for the consequences resulting from the cover-up of the facts and grave failure in the process of investigation.”
That government declaration to that effect, he said, was deemed “historic” by Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, particularly because it produced “a series of steps… to fully remove obstacles which hindered the investigation.”
Tagino continued: “In this way, the national state made a political decision to reach a definitive clarification of the attack and put forward all necessary resources towards this goal.”
He added that the country’s intelligence archives have been opened and “state secrecy lifted,” all of which is allowing access to documents that are crucial to the investigation.
He also lauded the Argentine justice department for welcoming the collaboration of Interpol in investigating the bombing, and he noted that Memoria Activa, a group committed to keeping the memory of the victims alive and lobbying for justice, has “recognized the progress made” over the last few months.
“The attack was against the entire Argentinian people, and there will be no respite” until justice is done,” Tagino pledged.
Among others paying tribute to the AMIA victims at the commemoration – co-sponsored by B’nai Brith Canada, Quebec region – were Israeli consul-general Yoram Elron, Liberal MNA Lawrence Bergman and B’nai Brith’s Moise Moghrabi. The names of the 85 victims were read aloud and the path from the synagogue’s doors to the speaking hall was marked by 85 yahrzeit candles.
Also supporting the event were Argentinian Jews of Montreal (JALOM), and the YM-YWHA.
By DAVID LAZARUS, Staff Reporter
http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15110&Itemid=86
Hatred towards the Mojahedin Terrorists is an indication of close ties between the people of Iran and Iraq
In a meeting with a number of Iraqi cultural figures as well as academicians in Tehran on Monday, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani said, "From the start of the US and other occupiers’ invasion of Iraq, we described the military campaign as a ‘quandary.’ Now, years after the assault, the occupiers are in reality mired in Iraq’s quagmire."
"Colonial acceptance has no place in Muslim states particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan and if the occupiers seek to linger in these two countries under any pretext, they should satisfy public demands," he added.
According to Press TV, the Chairman of Iran’s Expediency Council meanwhile termed the Iraqi nation as prudent and resistant, adding that the high turnout of Iraqis at the parliamentary elections was a true representative of their commitment to Islamic values.
He noted that Tehran calls for Iraq’s perseverance of territorial integrity as well as the establishment of stability and tranquility in the war-torn country.
Hashemi Rafsanjani meanwhile called on Iraqi scholars and academician to seal a bright future for their country through teaching and training Iraqi students.
The Ayatollah also referred to the Iranian and Iraqi nations’ hatred towards the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) as an indication of close ties and feelings between the officials and people of the two countries.
The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.
The MKO is on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze, and has been designated by the US government as a foreign terrorist organization. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visits Brussels and despite the ban enjoys 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).
A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.
According to 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.
Leaders of the group have been fighting to shed its terrorist tag after a series of bloody anti-Western attacks in the 1970s, and nearly 30 years of violent struggle against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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 was 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. – FNA
According to many MKO ex-members as well as political activists, terrorist and suicidal attacks ordained by Mojahedin leadership constitute an integral part of the cult approaches adopted by the organization. A brief look at the Mjahedin activities in recent years clarifies the fact that they have resorted to all means and strategies in order to achieve their main objective, i.e. seizing political power. Although they abuse international levers like human rights declarations and democracy to win legitimacy on the part of western countries, their true cultic and terrorist nature is fully disclosed when reaching political impasses.
The messages sent by Rajavi in recent years on the potentialities of Mojahedin to carry out terrorist attacks all around the world parallel to that of Al-Qaeda as well as his statements on the degeneration of a number of European MPs aim to pave the way for the initiation of terrorist actions therein. Likewise, Maryam Rajavi has repeatedly declared that Mojahedin can tear into the Europe by means of suicide actions in case Masoud Rajavi issues an order to do so. June 17th self-immolation of MKO members in Paris is convincing evidence confirming the anti-social and defiant nature of Mojahedin.
Mojahedin made use of unique self-destructive tactics in their early years of struggle against Pahlavi regime in Iran. They all carried cyanide capsules to use if arrested alive and being defendants, they struck an aggressive attitude in the regime’s courts to be sentenced to death believing that it might result in their political victory. In addition, in early 1980s, when the organization entered a new phase of armed struggle, this time against the new established regime in Iran, its terrorist activities reached their peak. Not the key figures but the innocent citizens were also killed and injured in terrorist attacks. There are evidences that Mojahedin have been moving on the armed tactic for more than four decades especially whenever they faced a critically political and strategic failure or stalemate. Interestingly, Mojahedin as well as their advocators are proud of having staged terrorist operations they refer to as revolutionary activities inside Iran.
Recently, Bijan Niyabati, one of the major spokesmen and theoreticians of MKO, in an interview with Khabargah, has referred to the fact that Mojahedin have been the founder of suicidal operations in the contemporary Iran at a time when no political trend or individual was even thinking of it. When asked to elaborate on the probability of Mojahedin’s committing terrorist and suicidal actions against Western countries and citizens, he replied, ‘It is unlikely as long as the Mojahedin leadership is not intruded.’
These statements on the part of political advocates of Mojahedin imply the extent to which they hope to misuse democratic potentials of the West for the fulfillment of their totalitarian objectives. The point worthy of note is that Niyabati openly refers to the ultimate target of their terrorist actions in the Europe. In a doublespeak, he makes an attempt to deny the accusations made against MKO on their terrorist nature and at the same time lets the outside world know the serious danger of Mojahedin, stating:
Self-immolations in France revealed that if the organization had terrorist intentions, it was much simpler for its members to destroy the Europe by suicide bomb attacks instead of setting themselves on fire.
This is considered to be a real threat for the west implying the fact that the deliberate negligence of Westerners and the advocates of Mojahedin due to some political considerations may inevitably lead to considerable costs to be paid by the global community. The extent to which Western countries realizes the danger of MKO depends on their unbiased investigation on the real nature of the organization just by reflecting upon the assertions of MKO theoreticians. Westerners have repeatedly acknowledged the fact that Mojahedin lack any social support inside Iran, therefore it may not be considered a threat for the Iranian regime. In that case, would not the Western citizens be the main target of brutal actions of this cultic terrorist group living among them?
A close study of the statements made by Masoud Rajavi in his lecture in 2007 as well as the clear warnings of Niyabati on the consequences of violating the sanctum of the leadership gives us a deeper understanding of the threat of the organization against the global community in general and Western countries in particular. He even refrains to specify what he means by MKO leadership: the ideological leader living in the hideout or the main suspect of France June 17th case, Maryam Rajavi.
Secretary General of the non-governmental organization, Habilian Association briefed British parliamentarians about the crimes committed by the Mujahideen-e Khalq Organization (MKO).
Mohammad Javad Hasheminejad who visited Britain to participate in the international conference on ‘Alternative Global Perspectives on Terrorism’ during his one-week stay in London met with representatives of the House of Commons and House of Lords and presented documents on some of the crimes committed by the banned group.
“In the meetings with British lawmakers, officials of the civil society and human rights organizations, we realized that some of them do not know much about the terrorist operations and inhumane track record of the MKO. After talks with them, some requested that they be allowed to cooperate closely with Habilian and exchange information about human rights issues and fighting terrorism,” he told IRNA in London.
He went on to add, “Unfortunately, given the free activities of the MKO in some western countries, the group has managed to influence some parliamentarians and politicians in these countries who do not know much about its terrorist background. Those who even knew a little about the MKO’s terror network were shocked when we presented documentation about murder of 12,000 people in Iran by the group and its terrorist activities in other countries, including Iraq.”
Hashemi Nejad also met the press in London.
“In the meetings, we briefed the journalists about the dangers posed by terrorist groups for the human race and urged them to cover news and information about the operations of the MKO in an unbiased manner,” he noted.
British lawmakers removed the MKO from the UK’s list of banned terror groups on June 22.
Legislators then approved the decision by the Court of Appeals, which had ruled in May that the MKO should no longer be listed as a proscribed group. The MKO has committed acts of aggression against both Iranian and Iraqi nationals and remains banned by the European Union and the United States.
According to Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, the terrorist groups has killed over 16,000 people in Iran most of them by MKO terrorist mercenaries, including one president, a prime minister, four ministers, dozens of parliamentarians, and senior officials.
Deciding the fate of the Mujahedin
The Bush administration inherited many of Iraq’s problems when it invaded that country, including an Iranian terrorist organization funded and armed by Saddam Hussein, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MKO). Though in the midst of a war on terror, the Bush administration chose in 2003 to protect 3,000 of the organization’s militants and house them in a camp given to the group by Saddam — Camp Ashraf just north of Baghdad.
Ever since, the faith of this State Department-listed terrorist organization has been unclear. Hated by Iraqis for its involvement in Saddam’s crimes against the Iraqi people, the Baghdad government wants to expel the group. But no country is willing to take them.
Though the Iranian government wants to put the group’s leadership on trial in Iran, it seems less interested in the organization’s rank and file. The European governments have little interest in taking in 3,000 battle-hardened Muslim militants, fearing that they will use Europe as a base to plan and execute further terrorist attacks.
The U.S., on the other hand, has already contradicted its own principles by giving preferential treatment to an organization on the State Department’s terrorist list — even though President Bush himself pointed to the organization’s patronage under Saddam Hussein as evidence of Iraq’s support for international terrorists in his speech to the United Nations in September 2002.
"Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organizations that direct violence against Iran," President Bush said.
To complicate matters further, if reports that the U.S. has used MKO terrorists for cross-border raids into Iran are true, then Washington certainly doesn’t want these militants to end up in Iranian hands.
Washington seems doomed if it does, doomed if it doesn’t.
Members of the terrorist organization have protested outside the White House this past week, angered by the Bush administration’s decision to hand over Camp Ashraf to the Iraqi government. The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will surrender the MKO members to Tehran, they argue, who in turn will imprison and execute them.
Though approximately 500 MKO fighters have been repatriated to Iran and no reports of abuse have emerged according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which oversaw their return, sending rank-and-file Mujahedin members to Iran against their will would be irresponsible.
Hated by the Iranian people for having fought on Saddam’s side in the Iraq-Iran war, the Iranian Mujahedin is understandably fearful of the fate awaiting them in Iran.
Yet, contrary to the protesters outside the White House, the issue is not a choice between freedom in Camp Ashraf and captivity in Iran.
The Mujahedin is not an effective opposition to the government in Iran as the organization’s defenders in Washington claim, but a politico-religious cult that brainwashes its members, places children of Mujahedin members with other families in order to prevent parents from defecting, and who according to Human Rights Watch, maintains control by torturing its rank and file. "Members who try to leave the Mujahedin pay a very heavy price," according to Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch.
Its involvement in terrorism is undisputed. It assassinated several Americans in Iran in the 1970s. It supported the taking of the U.S. Embassy in Iran and blasted Ayatollah Khomeini for releasing the American diplomats in 1981, arguing instead that the hostages should have been executed. It made a pact with Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and fought alongside his army against their Iranian countrymen. Later in the 1990s, they became Saddam’s most trusted henchmen, tasked with quelling Kurdish and Shiite uprisings against the Iraqi dictator.
According to defectors, Mujahedin members in Camp Ashraf celebrated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In 2004, French authorities descended upon the Mujahedin headquarters in France, arresting the leader of the cult, Maryam Rajavi. Immediately, zealous Mujahedin members staged hunger strikes and several set themselves ablaze. Hardly the behavior of a democratically oriented opposition group.
But the vast majority of the Camp Ashraf residents are not so much members of a terrorist cult as they are victims of it. The camp is itself a prison. It may have provided Mujahedin militants with protection against ordinary Iraqis who sought to avenge their relatives killed by the Mujahedin at the behest of Saddam Hussein, but the prison has primarily enabled the leaders of the terrorist organization to prevent the rank and file from defecting.
Rather than debating where to expel the Mujahedin terrorists, help should be provided to the rank and file to break with the cult and make free choices about their future. It’s the only humanitarian solution to this dilemma – and one that defeats rather than protects this anti-American terrorist group.
Trita Parsi