Mujahedin Khalq Terror group

MeK Status on US Terror List Hinges on Relocation

Clinton says if anti-Tehran terrorist group can’t find someplace to go after being evicted from Iraq, they may get de-listed.

If the terrorist Iranian dissident group Mujahadin-e Khalq (MeK) can’t find someplace to go after being evicted from its base in Iraq, the United States may remove the group from the State Department’s terrorist list.

The MEK has a long history of terrorist activity going back to the 1970′s and it remains on America’s official list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and has the goal of overthrowing the Iranian government. Because of this goal, there has been a big money push by many influential people in Washington to get the group removed from the State Department’s terrorist list, presumably to make it eligible for U.S. funding and harm Iran.

MeK’s former ally, the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, had allowed the group to settle at Camp Ashraf, 40 miles from Baghdad. But now Iraq’s Shi’ite majority has forged closer ties with its Shi’ite neighbor Iran, and the MeK is no longer welcome at Ashraf.

Despite still being officially considered a terrorist group, the U.S. has sort of taken MeK under its wing, opening up a former U.S. base in Iraq for the 3,000 MeK members in Ashraf to resettle to, and trying to find a third country that might welcome them, since both Iraq and Iran will not.

But they can’t stay at the U.S. base in Iraq permanently. And if a new home can’t be found for them, the U.S. may de-list them, and possibly even welcome them on U.S. soil.

“Given the ongoing efforts to relocate the residents, MeK cooperation in the successful and peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf, the MeK’s main paramilitary base, will be a key factor in any decision regarding the MEK’s FTO status,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told U.S. lawmakers.

This is a despicable and hypocritical approach on the part of Washington. U.S. officials recently told NBC News that Israel has financed, trained, and armed MeK terrorists to carry out unprovoked attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists inside Iran. To help MeK find refuge or even de-list them would clearly be U.S. support for terrorists. Of course, when terrorists target the United States or its allies, they are detained without charge or trial, tortured, or even executed. But if terrorists target an adversary of the U.S., like Iran, suddenly they’re worthy of Washington’s help.

by John Glaser,

March 1, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

12 MKO leaders on Interpol’s wanted list

Interpol has issued arrest warrants for 12 leaders of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization, the Habilian Association website reported on Tuesday.

The website, quoting an informed unidentified Iraqi official, said that the arrest warrants have been issued for the members due to the illegal activities that they have carried out, including abduction.

According to the official, the main impediment to the implementation of the arrest warrants is the fact that police forces are not allowed to enter Camp New Iraq, which was formerly known as Camp Ashraf, where most of the MKO members are based.

However, he said that Iraq reserves the right to pursue the cases of the MKO members in other countries when they are transferred out of Iraq.

The Iraqi government plans to transfer all MKO members out of the country and has temporality relocated them to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near Baghdad International Airport.

February 29, 2012 0 comments

Rajavi Banned to Enter UK

The UK Home Secretary barred Maryam Rajavi from coming to Britain.

According to Evining Standard, some British parliamentarians are angry at Theresa May, the Home Secretary, after she barred Maryam Rajavi from coming to Britain.

The ban was imposed on Maryam Rajavi after the Home Secretary claimed that her presence on the country’s soil might damage efforts to stop Iran obtaining nuclear weapons and put Britons in the country at risk.

Baroness Boothroyd, the former Commons Speaker, and Lord Waddington, a former Conservative home secretary, have denounced the ban as “intolerable” and are bringing a judicial review in an attempt to overturn it.

After her presence in the European Parliament, Rajavi was invited by the British peers and MPs to speak in Parliament but was refused permission to visit Britain after the Home Office ruled that it would have a “significant damaging impact on relations between the UK and Iran”.

Maryam Rajavi was originally excluded from Britain in 1997 because of her leadership role in the terrorist MKO, a group proscribed as a terrorist organization before the ban was lifted by the Britain’s Court of Appeal in 2008. Mrs May renewed the ban in October last year and again last month.

February 27, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Dining with MKO Terrorists

Sitting alongside a number of European and American personalities, whose countries allegedly bear the flag of a global war against terrorism, you can see the leader of a designated terrorist

Supporters of the terrorist MKO are allowed to serve in Congress

group in a conference held in the European Parliament in Brussels on February 7. Of course, all personalities present in the conference, either those occupying an official post or formers, knew well whom they were in her presence, Maryam Rajavi – the Paris based leader of a terrorist cult in the absence of her husband, Massoud Rajavi.

Among them you could see Jim Higgins, member of the European Parliament presided over the meeting, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Vice President of the European parliament; Struan Stevenson, President of Delegation for Relations with Iraq of the European Parliament; Howard Dean, former Chairman of the U.S. Democratic Party; John Bruton, former Prime Minister of Ireland and former EU Ambassador to U.S.; Patrick Kennedy, U.S. Congressman (1995-2011); and Senator Robert Torricelli (1997-2003. The question raised in my mind is, what kind of relation could these people have with the representative of a terrorist cult still on the State Department’s terrorist list?

I recall a time when Mojahedin, in the early days of Iranian Islamic revolution, reiterate their antagonism with the American imperialism in many published statements and articles in their own publications after the Islamic revolution. In the first two years of the post-revolution, Mojahedin showed no open antagonism against the regime and tried to highlight a coalition with it to inoculate an extreme anti- imperialism and anti-American vision in the Islamic state and among the public. As part of their revolutionary slogans, they called for the establishment of a nationalist, democratic government that they hardly believed in as they consented to no system exclusive of socialism.

During the 9 month post-revolutionary period, from the victory of Iranian revolution in February to the takeover of the American Embassy in November 1979, Mojahedin frequently accused all religious leaders, except Ayatollah Khomeini and mostly for political considerations, and ranking authorities of negotiating and compromising with American imperialism especially after Brzezinski-Bazargan fortuitous, brief meeting in Algiers on 1 November 1979.

The importance of the embassy takeover lies in the fact that the incident turned into a golden opportunity for Mojahedin Khalq to start an extensive political-ideological propaganda. It might be true to say Mojahedin hardly played any role in the occupation of the embassy, but their role to aggravate the situation to turn it into a crisis lasting for 444 days is an undeniable truth. Concerning this fact as a part of the group’s anti-imperialist struggle, in the US State Department’s report of 1994 we read; “As part of that struggle, they assassinated at least six American citizens, supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, and opposed the release of American hostages”.

But Mojahedin fail to recall that while Iranian authorities tried to achieve a solution to end the crisis, it was Mojahedin who through numerous announcements and messages draw sketches for total annihilation of imperialism, warned against possibly made concession vis-à-vis America’s threats and announced their readiness for nay military confrontation with it. They repeatedly proposed their own logical anti-imperialist suggestions to regime’s authorities to confront America, including seizure and confiscation of American assets in Iran and annulment of all signed contracts and drawing a sketch for total annihilation of imperialism.

Evidences never fail to reveal the truth. There are numerous facts published in Mojahedin’s publications that prove the critical role of the organization in intensifying the created tension and crisis to advance their so called anti-imperialism objectives and to win a public support to initiate an aggressive campaign against the main Capitalist camp, namely America.

Maybe Mojahedin never anticipated that in less than two decades they would have to make desperate attempts to acquit themselves of what they refer to as the accusations and its leaders would sit alongside some retired imperialist fed officials urging them to support the group out of some crises. For sure Mojahedin are the same leopards that have never changed their spots and the American sides are well aware whom they have leashed. But to sit with them at the same table, even if for political interests and causes, seems to be as illogical as unleashing beasts that could well terrorize the world for a mere achievement of trumpeted democracy the group itself has the least faith in. and I hear many people asking: If Mojahedin Khalq is a terrorist group, why are its supporters allowed to serve in Congress?

February 27, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The group assassinated Iran’s scientists wants to be delisted

Yet, the MEK, also referred to as the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or PMOI, has a history of having killed American citizens, was allied with the Iraqi regime of President Saddam Hussein and has been closely associated with the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida.

A virulently anti-Iranian terrorist group has been credited by U.S. intelligence sources for the recent killings of Iranian nuclear scientists and Iran’s major missile developer, even while the organization is promoting a public relations effort – with the support of prominent Americans – to The group that assassinated Iran's scientists wants to be delisted be removed from the U.S. State Department’s terrorist list.

Sources confirm that the Mujahedin-e-Khalq organization, which also is referred to as MEK or MKO, was involved with Israel in the current round of assassinations of two Iranian nuclear scientists and Iran’s top missile designer. To date, some five Iranian nuclear scientists have been targeted.

Separately, the British Daily Mail reports that U.S. officials have confirmed that Israel has been funding and training Iranian dissidents to assassinate nuclear scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear program.

U.S. officials also confirmed similar information to NBC News but quickly added that the United States isn’t involved in the assassinations of the Iranian nuclear scientists, although it apparently is aware of the alleged connection between the Israeli intelligence service Mossad and the MEK.

U.S. sources confirm the close relationship between Israel’s Mossad and the MEK. The association hasn’t gone unnoticed by Iranian officials.

"The relation is very intricate and close," according to Mohammad Javad Larijani, who is a senior aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s current supreme leader. "They (Israelis) are paying the mujahedin. Some of their (MEK) agents are providing Israel with information. And they recruit and also manage logistical support.

"Israel does not have direct access to our society," Larijani added. "Mujahedin, being Iranian and being part of Iranian society, they have a good number of places to get in touch with people. So, I think they are working hand-to-hand very close. And we do have very concrete documents."

Larijani apparently was referring to an interrogation of an MEK member in a failed assassination attempt in 2010 in which such documentation reportedly was found on him. Despite confirmation by U.S. intelligence sources of MEK involvement in continued assassinations, the MEK seeks to be removed from the U.S. terrorism list – a goal which has the backing from notable Americans, several members of Congress and a prominent Washington-based law firm.

The effort to delist the MEK is led by groups on both the left and right of the American political spectrum because of its anti-Iranian position and opposition to the Muslim clerics which lead the Islamic republic.

In August 1998, for example, the MEK received assistance from the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida to assassinate 11 Iranian diplomats, journalists and innocent civilians in an attack on Shi’a Muslims in Afghanistan.

The MEK was first established in the 1960s by the college-educated children of many Iranian merchants who sought to counter what they viewed as excessive Western influence with the regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a closed U.S. ally who reigned from 1941 to 1979 when the Islamic Revolution took place installing the clerics under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In events leading up to the overthrow of the shah, the MEK staged numerous terrorist attacks inside Iran and killed a number of U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran.

The MEK also backed the takeover in 1979 of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and for a time backed the clerics led by Ayatollah Khomeini against nationalists and moderates within the revolution.

However, a power struggle occurred in late 1980 and by mid-1981 the MEK was engaged in street battles against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

The MEK sided with the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The group actually received refuge from Hussein and conducted attacks on Iran from within Iraqi territory.

U.S. intelligence sources tell G2Bulletin that the MEK was involved in the movement of al-Qaida members into eastern Iran after the October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan to escape U.S. detection. The eastern portion of Iran is regarded as a lawless Sunni haven of tribes loyal to al-Qaida. The region borders the Baluchistan province in neighboring Pakistan where many members of al-Qaida reside, along with other Sunni Islamist militants.

Iraq’s Hussein provided financial and logistical assistance to the MEK as a counter-balance to Shi’a Tehran.

Yet, the MEK in 2006 claimed that it had renounced violence in 2001 as it was seeking to have funds unfrozen by the European Union, which ultimately occurred.

With deep financial pockets, however, the MEK today has begun a major public relations campaign in the United States to be removed, or "delisted," from the State Department’s U.S. terrorist list, formally known as the Foreign Terrorist Organization, list.

The MEK has enlisted the help of former U.S. cabinet members and other former American officials from both the left and right of the political spectrum. It also has legal representation for its delisting activities from a highly expensive Washington-based law firm, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.

The campaign to get delisted began in earnest last year with a kickoff event at the swanky Williard Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Notable Washington insiders who have been tapped to speak on MEK’s behalf include Louis Freeh, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton; former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean; John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; Gen. Wesley Clark, retired former NATO supreme allied commander; Ed Rendell, former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania; Rudolph Giulani, former mayor of New York City; Porter Goss, former director of Central Intelligence; Lee Hamilton, former co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission; retired Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of Central Intelligence; and Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico, among others.

In all, some 33 high-ranking former U.S. officials were listed as "prominent speakers at MEK-related Meetings and Conferences from December 2010-July 2011," based on a list compiled by the Huffington Post.

In addition to Washington, events for MEK’s delisting efforts have featured these and other prominent speakers in Berlin, Brussels, London and Paris.

Because the MEK still is on the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list, these speakers cannot be paid directly. While MEK reportedly is spending millions of dollars to obtain these speakers, they are paid indirectly through numerous private Iranian-American booking agents who, in turn, pay the prominent American speakers from $20,000 to $40,000 for just an eight to 10 minute speech on MEK’s behalf.

In that way, the speakers technically aren’t accepting money directly from a terrorist organization, even though in presenting their speeches on behalf of the MEK they know the source of the money.

Now, the MEK is blanketing U.S. television with advertisements nationwide calling for the group’s delisting.

A State Department spokesman refused to comment on ongoing deliberations to consider the MEK’s request to be delisted, a process which formally has been under way for more than a year. However, the State Department has yet to make a decision.

By Michael Maloof – Business Insider

February 26, 2012 0 comments

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Americans Want to Keep the Mojahedin Khalq in Iraq

Interview with Hassan Danaeifar, Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, on the saga of Mojahedin-e Khalgh terrorist group

IRD: After months of tussles, the process of expelling from Iraq the Islamic Republic’s main militant opposition, the People’s Mujahedeen Organization (MEK/MKO), has reached an operative level. According to recent news, four hundred members of the Marxist cult have been moved to Camp Liberty, there awaiting their destiny after negotiations between representatives of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) and the government of Iraq. Despite the Iraqi government’s insistence on expelling the MEK, several domestic and foreign pressure groups are impeding the procedure, against both Baghdad’s and Tehran’s will: Washington in particular wants to keep the MEK in Iraq as a pressure tool against Iran, while European countries are unwilling to host the group. In the meantime, rumors from inside the group’s main base, Camp Ashraf in the Diyala Province of Iraq, persist that the MEK leaders are still resisting expulsion. Iranian Diplomacy has interviewed Hassan Danaeifar, Tehran’s ambassador to Baghdad, on the process of MEK’s expulsion and the Iraqi government’s decision:

IRD: How could the transferring of MEK members from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty bring a turnabout to this lengthy story; considering that Camp Liberty is still a part of Iraqi soil?

HD: Based on the agreement between the Iraqi government and UNHCR, a temporary residence had to be designated for the group, where its members could directly interview with UN representatives from the High Commissioner on Refugees, to see if they demand a return to Iran, a move to Europe, or have other decisions in mind. There was no such opportunity in Camp Ashraf; the MEK operatives prevented any interviews.

IRD: The MEK is still resisting efforts to leave Iraq. Could their resistance change the decision of the Iraqi government?

HD: What the government of Iraq is seeking is sovereignty over its entire territory. Camp Ashraf is an impediment against their goal. Plus, the Iraqi government acknowledges the MEK as a terrorist group and insists on their leaving of Iraq. There is no evidence proving that the group has legally entered Iraq upon the admission of the Iraqi government, even at the time of Saddam. They have no documents showing that they have sought asylum, and their stay in Iraq is illegal.

IRD: An Iraqi MP had recently claimed that the government is not that determined to expel the MEK. Do you concur with his remarks?

HD: Well I think you should ask him. But there are different voices inside the Iraqi parliament. We also see lawmakers who insist that the MEK members immediately leave the country.

IRD: Looking at your previous interviews on the issue I see that you have pointed to ‘reasonable excuses’ of the Iraqi government regarding the MEK expulsion, which Iran should understand. What do you mean by “reasonable excuses”?

HD: I don’t remember using exactly that phrase, but as I said, the Iraqi government opposes the MEK’s further residence in Iraq for the reasons I told you earlier in the interview. It is facing unreasonable pressure from third parties, and seriously pursues the process through its agreements with the United Nations.

IRD: What do the Americans think of the MEK’s expulsion from Iraq?

HD: I’m not quite certain, but I do know that both the Americans and Europeans insist that the MEK stay in Iraq. But Baghdad cares about its sovereignty and regards the MEK a terrorist group. Transferring four hundred members of the group to Camp Liberty was the first phase of their decision to banish the MEK.

February 25, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Obama-al-Qaeda-MEK Connection

When Will We throw This Bum out?
The Obama-al-Qaeda-MEK Connection

British puppet President Barack Obama has entered into an alliance with two of the worlds leading terrorist organizations—al-Qaeda and the Mujahideen e-Khalq (MEK)—in his zeal to overthrow the present governments in Syria and Iran. The Obama-al-Qaeda marriage of convenience is particularly deep and it centers on the drive to overthrow the government of Bashar Assad in Damascus, through an armed opposition.

U.S. intelligence agencies are aware that the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) has no actual military capabilities inside Syria, and consists largely of a group of defectors from the Syrian Army who are safe-housed on military bases inside Turkey. All of the significant military actions targeted at the Syrian government have been carried out by al-Qaeda terrorists, who have infiltrated the country from Iraq. The suicide bombings in Damascus and Aleppo, the assassinations of Syrian government and military officials, and the sabotage of pipelines and other infrastructure have all been carried out by al-Qaeda. Despite widespread evidence in the hands of U.S. intelligence agencies, President Obama continues to join hands with the new al-Qaeda head, Ayman al-Zawaheri, in calling for the violent removal of President Assad from power.

The idea that the President of the United States is so blatantly in bed with the terrorists who carried out the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001 should be sufficient grounds for his immediate removal from office, under the impeachment provisions of the U.S. Constitution or Section 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment. Last year, following the U.S. Navy SEAL Team killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden, President Obama did cartwheels to claim credit for the act. Now, he is allied with the very same 9/11 perpetrators in pushing for a war in the Persian Gulf that will rapidly expand into a global thermonuclear confrontation with Russia and China.

The British Role
As well-documented in Executive Intelligence Review, the al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11 were carried out with the full support of the Anglo-Saudi Al Yamamah apparatus. Under the al-Yamamah oil-for-arms deal, launched in 1985 and continued through to the present, British intelligence and the Saudis created a string of offshore covert operations funds, which directly financed the 9/11 attacks. Al-Yamamah funds, in excess of $2 billion, were funneled to Saudi Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, and at least $50,000 of those funds went to the San Diego-based team of 9/11 hijackers. A Joint Congressional Select Committee, probing the 9/11 attacks, established evidence of the Bandar-al-Qaeda funding, but the 28-page chapter detailing this evidence was suppressed by the George W. Bush White House. At the start of his administration, President Obama promised family members of the 9/11 victims that he would release the 28 pages, but he never kept his promise, and moved to further suppress the evidence of al-Yamamah angle on the attacks, thus protecting his British masters along with the Saudi Royals.

To this day, former Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who co-chaired the Congressional probe, insists that the cover-up of the Saudi Monarchy’s complicity in the attacks must be exposed publicly.

President Obama’s embrace of the 9/11 terrorists, after the fact, constitutes a scandal of enormous proportions for this Administration, and underscores further the hypocrisy of Obamas efforts to exploit the bin-Laden assassination, while he colludes with the remnants of al-Qaeda.

The same is true of the President’s collusion with the Mujahideen e-Khalq, an Iranian terrorist group that has been on the U.S. State Departments list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations since its inception in 1997. MEK assassinated a number of U.S. military personnel in Iran in the 1970s, actively participated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and then fled to Iraq and allied with Saddam Hussein, after they were purged from the Islamic Republic leadership. In recent weeks, MEK has been linked to the assassinations of Iranian scientists. This week, the Bangkok Post revealed that Thai authorities believe that MEK terrorists were behind foiled attempts to attack Israeli officials. Those attacks were loudly blamed on the Iranian government, and fed the drive to launch military action against Iran.

While the Obama Administration has attempted to keep a distance from the assassinations and bombings and other acts of sabotage inside Iran over the past two years, MEK has been protected by U.S. military forces at Camp Ashraf inside Iraq, ever since the U.S. invasion of that country in March 2003.

Executive Inteligence Review

February 25, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

United States’ two-faced approach to terrorism

Israeli Iran attack? What goes around comes around
Malcolm X said, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, that “the chickens have come home to roost,” by which he meant that the violence of American interventionist foreign policy had come back to haunt the country

The exposure of a possible Iranian bomb-making cell in Thailand, and the coordinated attacks against Israeli targets in India and Georgia, remind us of the truth behind Malcom X’s remark. It may be no accident that the attacks occurred only days after US officials confirmed in an MSNBC report that Israel’s Mossad and the Iranian terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) have been collaborating on assassinating Iranian scientists and attacking military bases.

The attacks appear to represent tit-for-tat responses to a long-term covert war against Iran by Israel, along with logistical support offered by the United States, including technical support for the development of the Stuxnet computer worm that targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2010.

Even the method of attack in India mimics Israel-MEK assassinations in Iran, with a motorcyclist sticking a magnetic bomb to the car of an Israeli military attaché while his wife was stuck in traffic.

Iran has denied any involvement. Though the plot in Thailand appears utterly amateurish, and there are questions as to why Iran might choose India – one of the most important importers of its oil – to attack the Israeli diplomats, the denial might be self-serving. Israel does have a well-developed military relationship with Georgia, as it does with India, and has tried to use Georgia, Azerbaijan, and the Kurdish region of Iraq to spy on Iran, and presumably exploit their territory for its covert war against Iran.

Iran’s presumed involvement is meant as an explicit warning not just to Israel, but also to the US, of what is in store if the covert war against the Islamic republic continues or if Israel attacks it militarily.

We are entering a dangerous new stage of the confrontation in which Iran feels it must respond in kind to attacks against it. When two nations begin to engage in such patterns of attacks and counterattacks, it becomes much easier for a mistake or misjudgment to lead to a disaster.

All it would take is an attempt to blow up an Israeli embassy or the killing of an official to provoke a full-scale regional war. This is precisely what happened in 1982, when terrorists attempted to assassinate Israel’s ambassador to London. Israel’s defense minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, used the attempt as a pretext to invade Lebanon.

Israel’s “outraged” response to the recent attacks and its blaming of Iran drip hypocrisy. Israel has assassinated Iranian scientists in Iran and Palestinian figures around the world going back decades, and as recently as January 2010, when it killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. Israel claims that the Lebanese Hezbollah was involved in the attacks. If so, this would represent a blowback for Israel’s assassination of Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus in February 2008. Hezbollah has denied involvement – which again might be self-serving – making it clear that any possible revenge attack for Maghniyeh’s death will be “spectacular,” for which Hezbollah will take full responsibility.

It is misleading for the media to report that last week’s attacks targeted Israeli “civilians.” While we oppose such attacks against both Iranians and Israelis – indeed against anyone and any nation – the recent assassination of an Iranian scientist and his driver, and the 2010 near-fatal wounding of another scientist and his wife, were no less attacks on “civilians.” Somehow Israel’s supporters miss this element of the story, though Iranians certainly have not. Israeli military and diplomatic personnel serving in foreign assignments are frontline troops in their nation’s covert war against Iran. If Israel does not want its own civilians targeted, it must not target Iranian civilians.

Israel considers itself immune from the immutable law of terror: What goes around comes around. Israelis such as Defense Minister Ehud Barak have in the past downplayed the possibility of Iranian blowback, saying that Iran would not wish to widen the war and risk the overthrow of its regime. The strikes in India and Georgia and the plot in Thailand counter such claims.

The fact is that the Iranian regime is under domestic pressure by its democratic opposition, and is threatened by Israel and the United States on a daily basis. Tough sanctions have been imposed on Iran that have hurt the lives of ordinary Iranians. Thus, the Iranian regime may feel compelled to strike back at some point. At the same time, the assassination of the Iranian scientists did not provoke a word of protest by almost anyone in the West.

ANOTHER VIEW: The Iran pot bubbles. Will it cook Obama?

Israel – and by extension the US – seem to believe that there is good terrorism (committed by them and their allies) and bad terrorism (committed by their foes). The US State Department expressed concerns only for Iran’s possible involvements in the terror campaign but did not utter a single word about Israel’s covert war against Iran. But there is only one type of terrorism, terrible for humanity. If we do not condemn terrorism universally – regardless of who has or which state commits it – then we should not be surprised when our adversaries adopt it as a strategy to counter the terrorism committed by us and our allies against them.

Muhammad Sahimi, a professor at the University of Southern California, analyzes Iran’s political developments for the PBS Frontline/Teheran Bureau website. Richard Silverstein is a freelance journalist who specializes in Israeli national security issues and writes the Tikun Olam blog.

By Muhammad Sahimi and Richard Silverstein,

February 25, 2012 0 comments

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

Iraqi Sadr Movement Raps Ban Ki-Moon for Pro-Terrorism Remarks

A spokesman of the Shiite Sadr Movement lambasted UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for his remarks in support for the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as MEK, Ban Ki-moon; Secretary General of UN NCR or PMOI), cautioning that he is not entitled to comment on the settlement or extension of the terrorist group’s presence in Iraq.

"He (Ban Ki-moon) is actually implementing others’ policies which are against Iraq’s freedom and independence since there is no law that allows Ban Ki-moon to comment on the presence of the MKO in Iraq or their leaving the country," the Cultural Advisor of Sadr Movement, Rassem al-Marvani, told FNA on Wednesday.

He underlined that a simple look at the positions taken by Ban Ki-moon shows that he is following the imperialistic policies of the US and is trying to put pressure on Iran in this way.

In relevant remarks earlier this month, a senior Pakistani analyst blasted the US and European states’ support for the terrorist MKO, and stressed that the western states are seeking to destabilize the region by supporting the terrorist group.

In an interview with Habilian website, the official website of Iran’s Habilian Association – a human rights group formed by the families of 17,000 terror victims in Iran – Seyed Feiz Hussein Naqshbandi described US and European supports for the MKO as "political and immoral."

He added the US seeks to create insecurity in the countries opposed to the colonial policies of America by such measures.

Naqshbandi said that the supports of the United States and some European countries for terrorists are aimed at "creating turmoil and turbulence in the Middle East."

Earlier reports said that the ringleaders of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization who were under the Iraqi government’s pressures to leave the country have transferred a number of the group’s members to the European countries.

According to the report, the 200 members of the terrorist MKO who had disappeared from the notorious Camp Ashraf in Iraq in past months have been reappearing in European countries.

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

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

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).

The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.

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

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

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

February 23, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The MEK and the Warped Nature of the Iran Debate

Edward Luce wrote this a few days ago in a column on Iran:

On Wednesday they hold the first presidential debate in three weeks. As in previous ones, commercial breaks are likely to air a spot calling on Mr Obama to remove the MEK – the Mujahideen e-Khalq, the armed Iranian opposition group – from the US list of foreign terrorist organisations.

The MEK is believed to have carried out the recent assassinations of Iranian scientists on Israel’s behalf. Its US front organisations have paid hefty speaking fees to dozens of prominent figures, from Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, to Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Many of the Republican candidates also support lifting the ban.

Michael Auslin overreacts:

Yet even more incomprehensibly, Luce then notes that at the upcoming Republican presidential debate, there likely will be televised commercials calling for the delisting of Iran’s armed opposition group from lists of terrorist groups. Not only does this have nothing to do with the issue at hand, does Mr. Luce think the commercials are being paid for by the GOP? If not, then what’s his beef with the free market — whoever can afford a commerical can buy it. Just ask SEIU, which kept up a constant barrage in favor of Obamacare last year.

As the quote from Luce shows, the MEK issue is perfectly relevant to a discussion of Israel and the Iranian nuclear program because Israel has allegedly used MEK operatives to kill Iranian nuclear scientists. I assume Luce’s point is to draw attention to the fact that there is televised advocacy for de-listing a terrorist group that has recently been implicated in acts of terrorism against Iran, and these attacks form one part of the covert war being waged against Iran because of its nuclear program. Some of Romney’s advisers have publicly supported de-listing the MEK, and Gingrich and Santorum are on record endorsing the assassinations the MEK has reportedly carried out. One problem is that the MEK’s American advocates are often paid for their advocacy, and the other is that three of the Republican presidential candidates apparently have no objection to acts of terrorism so long as they are committed against the right people.

If this were any other terrorist group, it would be unthinkable that its advocates could run television commercials calling for the group’s removal from the FTO list during presidential debates or at any other time, but because it is a group dedicated to overthrowing the Iranian government it is somehow considered acceptable and unobjectionable. I am guessing Luce’s inclusion of the MEK material in his column was intended to highlight how biased in favor of confrontation the Iran debate in the United States is. That Auslin thinks it is plausible or appropriate to compare advertisements on behalf of a recognized foreign terrorist group with legislative advocacy by an American union confirms it.

By Daniel Larison

February 23, 2012 0 comments

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