Mujahedin Khalq Terror group

The MKO remain on the consolidated list of Australia

The Australian Government updated its consolidated list on December 15th. The Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) is again in the list.

The consolidated list of Australia is a list of all persons and entities who are subject to targeted financial sanctions or travel bans under Australian sanctions laws.

The list includes the MKO and its affiliates such as National Liberation Army (NLA) and National Council of Resistance (NCR). The list won’t be reviewed until 2016.

http://dfat.gov.au/sanctions/consolidated-list.html

The MKO was on the list of the proscribed terrorist groups of the US and the EU but its multi–million dollar lobbying campaign succeed to delist the group.

As the Australian government took this proper action to maintain the MKO on its consolidated list, it is expected that other Western states follow the same pattern.

The presence of the cut-like MKO – with its violent background – in the West makes western citizens concerned over its cult-like attitudes such as self- immolations the group members committed in European Capitals following the arrest of their leader Maryam Rajavi by the French Police in June 2003.

Nejat Society translated Aaawa Association report

December 22, 2014 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Sanjabi and Khodabandeh in the Conference on “World Against Violence and Extremism”

Maryam Sanjabi and Ebrahim Khodabandeh Participate in the Conference on “World Against Violence and Extremism”

The International Conference on World Against Violence and Extremism (WAVE) was held in Tehran by the Institute of Political and International Studies (IPIS) on 9-10 Dec. 2014, with the participation of hundreds of delegations from 53 countries around the world.

The Conference was opened on Tuesday Dec. 9 in the Summit Conference Hall with the welcoming remarks of Mohammad Javad Zarif, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the opening remarks of Hassan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the opening session Asif Ali Zardari, former President of Pakistan, Kjell Magne Bondevik, former Prime Minister of Norway, Mohammad Mohaqqeq, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Afghanistan, and Dominique de Villepin, former Prime Minister of France, also delivered speeches.

The speech makers of the afternoon session included Ebrahim al-Jafari, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iraq, Walid al-Muallem, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Syria, Adnan Mansour, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants of Lebanon, Habib bin Mohammad Alriami, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister of Oman, Georgios Iacovou, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus, Werner Fasslabend, former Minister of Defense of Austria, Budimir Loncar, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Former Yugoslavia, Ashot Hovakimian, Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia, Atiqullah Atismal, Acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, Teresita Quintos Deles, Ministerial Adviser to the President on Peace Process of Philippines, and Nizomiddin Shamsiddinzoda Zohidi, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan.

The various sessions continued on the second day with speeches from personalities such as Kareem Abdullfattah, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, Esam Alddin Ali Abdullah, Coordinator for Counter Terrorism in the Interior Ministry of Sudan, Thore Ottar Vestby, Mayor for Peace of Norway, Jose Vicente Rangal Avalos, Executive Vice President of Venezuela, Samuel Santos Lopez, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua, Proto-Genes Pinheiro De Queirez, Federal Parliament Member of Brazil, and Abdulhamid Dashti, Chairman of the Human Rights Committee of Kuwait. The final speaker was Dr. Mansoureh Karami, wife of martyred nuclear scientist Massoud Alimohammadi, representing the Association for Defending Victims of Terror in Iran (ADVT). Her attendance and speech were very warmly welcomed by the participants, audience and the media.

Political and executive personalities and diplomats and officials from NGOs from various countries participated in an evening dinner reception hosted by Javad Zarif, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran. Maryam Sanjabi, former member of the Leadership Council, and Ebrahim Khodabandeh former official of the International Department of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, aka Rajavi Cult) participated in the opening session, dinner reception, and most of the fringe meetings of the two day conference and actively spoke with most participants and reporters. They were also interviewed by the Iraqi television network Al-Forat and delivered their points of view about the problems facing the families of Camp Liberty residents in Iraq – who desire to visit their loved ones but are prevented from doing so by MKO leaders – and urged the Iraqi officials responsible for the camp to take immediate action in this regard.

Sanjabi and Khodabandeh, during the two days of the conference while speaking to the participants gave a brief report about the latest situation of Rajavi’s mind manipulating destructive cult (MKO) and emphasized the need to establish contact between those trapped in Camp Liberty in Iraq in the hands of Rajavi, and their suffering families. In all cases, without exception, the addressees approved the necessity for this basic right to be fulfilled and made promises that they would do everything possible in their capacity to help this human rights issue which is the result of the whim of a violent extremist leader of a cult.

Khodabandeh also met with Jean-Marie Guthenno, President of the International Crisis Group, Ali Dabbagh, former Iraqi Government Spokesman, Jan Oberg, Director of Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research of Sweden, Richard Bacon, Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom, Herald Kindermann, German Council of Foreign Relations, Martin Fleischer, Vice President of the East-West Institute of Brussels, Cardinal Theodore Mc Carrick of the USA, Jim Slattery, former Congressman of the USA, and many dignitaries including governmental, non-governmental, international and human rights officials, and briefed them in detail about the Rajavi Cult and the situation of his victims and hostages in Camp Liberty.

Ebrahim Khodabandeh also met Ebrahim Jafari, Iraq’s Foreign Minister, and delivered to him the pleas of the families who anxiously want to visit their loved ones in Iraq. Mr. Jafari expressed his sympathy with the families and promised to try to help them. In this meeting Mr. Jafari emphasized that the MKO is a terrorist cult which has committed many crimes against the people of Iraq and confirmed that it is the wish of all factions and tendencies that they should leave the country and that their leaders be prosecuted. He said that preventing the families from visiting their relatives shows by itself the nature of the leaders of this group.

The Conference ended on the afternoon of Wednesday Dec. 10 with a concluding speech by Mr. Zarif followed by a question and answer session with him.

December 20, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Wrong prism to view Iran

During the last two years a number of opinion pieces have appeared in The Hill against Iran. These articles serve the interests and are written by the members and affiliates of a terrorist group known as the Mujahedeen-Khalq Organization (MEK). This group goes by various other names such as PMOI and NCRI and has an elaborate set of front groups and astroturf operations designed to allow them to operate in the U.S. while they were designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. Department of State and to create the illusion that they are part of some larger network of groups who are loyal to them.

These articles contain too many falsehoods and fabrications to address in one response, however, they are aimed at tarnishing the image of Iran and attacking the ongoing efforts to reach a final status agreement regarding the nuclear issue. The prospect of peaceful diplomatic conflict resolution frustrates those like the MEK who thrive on global volatility and need conflict in order to convince countries and interests to consider them needed and look past who they are. These articles also seek to create the impression that they are popular inside Iran. Many have refuted this and the State Department called them a “repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis.”

This group’s decades’ long history of terrorism against Iranian civilians is well documented by many including government institutions like the State Department and media outlets around the world. This group conspired with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War even as Saddam was using Chemical weapons against Iranians and Kurds. They then became Saddam’s private militia and participated in the brutal suppression of the Kurds in the early1990s.

When the Washington Times recently wrote an article on them, the experts that the Times approached were unwilling to speak on the record. One told them that “it was unthinkable to speak openly against the NCRI because doing so would result in ‘death threats from this group.’”

Additionally, human rights groups have catalogues their cultic totalitarian disposition noting practices such as mandatory divorce so members can dedicate more time to the cause and their vast extrajudicial compound prison system.

This group only recently managed to have themselves removed from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations after a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign, which the Rand Corporation characterized as “cultic practices” and “deceptive recruitment”; an effort that they continue today in The Hill. We understand that positions expressed in opinion articles published by The Hill do not necessarily represent those of the publishers, but we are confounded as to why your publication would make its coveted platform so routinely available to the propaganda of a terrorist cult or its bought off the rack series of front groups and shills.

The concept that this group would be capable of some sort of positive contribution to Iran’s future or U.S. policy towards Iran is greatly offensive to the Iranian people and the group’s many victims and their families.

Hamid Babaei,

Babaei is counselor and head of the Press Office for the Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the UN.

December 15, 2014 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Warning on the rise of Iranian ISIS

Open letter to Masoud Rajavi

Mr. Rajavi, I heard your latest voice message on the U-Tube on the occasion of Ashura 139 (2014).

Since 1979 in the political wing of the MEK, in response to why MEK should talk and seek the support of Western Governments, Political Parties, Human Rights Organizations… while your teachings obviously talks against them as imperialist institutions that are established only to exploit the world, your answer has always been:

“we must deceive the west about our true nature, the strategy of dealing with enemies rules to deal with them one at a time, first the home enemy then, when we have the power, comes the next enemy “Imperialist-Devourer West” that would be our glorious revolution and victory, so tactically we must take liberal positions to deceive and neutralize the next coming enemies. We must not only work hard to prevent our enemies from uniting against us, but we must even utilize them to defeat our home enemy.”

It was astonishing that, in your recent message you repeated the same exact words you have been hidden for more than three decades, that the UN and the UNAMI and the Human rights organizations are only words on the papers and called USA as the Colonialist that should wait for its turn to arrive?!!. Saying:

“It is my will that all our opponents must be punished, the days of the oppressed against the oppressors will arrive. This United Nation and UNAMI are all working for the ruling governments, the human rights issues are worthless words and are only good for composition, the Human Rights will be written with blood of the oppressed. The demarcation between us and the Reactionaries, the Colonialists, those working or in line with them and helping them, is with blood. Our diplomatic works and endeavors are all for preparation for the fire of the war, this regime will not only be toppled by USA, UNAMI and their cooperators. USA and UNAMI’s hands are in the hands of the Iranian Regime…”.

“…As we are working with the UN and USA and human rights organizations but we don’t believe in what they are doing and we know that we have to deal with our problems ourselves and that is through war and blood and revolution as there is a sea of blood between us and the enemy…let me repeat if we are working with UN and USA this is only because we want to prepare for the war…”.

It is unfortunate that after nearly four decades of crystal clear Strategic, political, military and even the worst, ideological dead ends that you have caused for the MEK which has had no fruit but death, bloodsheds and agonies for Iranian people in general and for the MEK members and their families in specific, not only you have not learnt from it, but childishly and obstinately violated all your international obligations that you will not enter to any terrorist activities any more. It implies while for the reason of your name being removed from lists of the terrorist organizations by American and European; you agreed to reject violent and terrorist activities, but in a way that was a tactical move and your strategy still is based on violence, war, and bloodshed.

Mr. Rajavi, the world has changed, there contemporary world as the Iranian people are all against all sorts of violence. Iranian peace loving people clearly showed it to the world in recent years that they defy all sorts of violence. The Civilized World is also against violence and it would be childish to think of deceiving them.

Even if you deceive the civilized world, however all the facts show that you have not been able to do so. Iranians will not tolerate another ISIS in Iran. Iranians want changes through democratic means and want to be at peace with the rest of the world and with each other. Even if you succeed in sending one or two death squads here of there, you cannot achieve anywhere, the civilized world has defeated Osama bin Laden and is defeating ISIS.

While you, as always, shed crocodile tears for the killed members of MEK in Ashraf and elsewhere to beguile those who have been trapped in the so called camp liberty as a result of your genius policies, called for bloodshed, killing, revenge, and also preparation for the final attack?! You even called for revenge against USA and UN and the whole world?!

Apart from your insane call, One must be out of his mind to call for killing and revenge while camp liberty residents cannot even provide their daily needs, the last time the enemy came into Ashraf, killed as many as they could and took with them as many as they could and your super heroes whom you forced them to divorce their spouse, leave their children, family and everything they had, which are supposed to move mountains bear handed could only get killed and nothing more. You are guiding the criminals to act better this time and not enter the camp but as in previous cases fire from the distance to provide more ammunition for your diplomatic shows?!! It is very obvious that you do not care about the Camp Liberty Residents if they are killed or deprived from their basic rights…

May be people outside MEK are not very familiar with you and your attitudes, but I know as thirty years members as hundreds of times in the past I have witnessed, you even curse your members for being killed yes for being killed, or even for surviving in the Iranian regime prisons.

Remember all those prisoners who escaped or were release from prisons and joined MEK in Iraq again, were cursed for surviving the prisons. Many have even been tortured by your top officials for it, since you believe that she or he must have died in the prison, and real members are does who have died in the prisons. You have repeatedly said that all the mujahedin must be ashamed of being alive!!!

You remember that you cursed all those 1400 members killed and even those who survived from that collective suicidal attack you sent them with no knowledge of war and military operations what so ever and were all slaughtered at that attack to Iran called Foroge Javidan (eternal light)?

Remember when Saddam did not meet you for seven years and for you to please him did everything you could, including, sending hit teams to Iran from Iraq while MEK members were in no way prepared to do so due to the loss of 1400 of their co-fighters in the so called eternal light operation? But you deceived mujahedin mendaciously that these operations are to keep on the fire of the revolution. But only after you helped Saddam to survive the Kurdish forces attack in the first Iraq war? Saddam accepted to meet you and you were jubilant after 7 years for being accepted. Remember the flattering, subservient and obsequious sickening language you used when you saw Saddam, repeating many time “pray to God, pray to God” that he has survived the coalition attacks. You called Iraq your second home thinking that now that Saddam has survived the first Iraq war you must now please Saddam to help you reach power? Of course he gifted you only with a few machine guns that you received it via his defense minister?

Remember all those hit teams who were trained in Iraq and you sent from Iraq to Iran for terrorist activities while you were commanding them from Paris were all arrested at the first check points of the border towns or were all killed in the clashes at the check points?

Remember the hit team of Jalal whom were attacked by the Badr group while crossing the border from Iraq to Iran for operation inside Iran and were wounded and had no water to drink at temperatures of 60 degree Celsius in the border and asked for help from the command post that you yourself were listening to them (as you always did), not only you did not help them but you curse them because they put you in an embarrassing situation?! They were all killed.

Remember all those limited border attacks with the full military and intelligence and financial support of Saddam that left thousands killed on both sides of the border from Iranian soldiers to the MEK members? As you claimed all those attacks were supposed to topple the regime in Iran.

Your analysis that one day Saddam will realize the value of the Mujahedin and fully support you to attack inside Iran never happened and instead of the Iranian regime, Saddam was toppled.

Remember that at the second Iraq war while keeping mujahedin at total news blackout your analysis was that US will never attack Iraq. And when the members questioned in case US did attack Iraq and us what would be our position, you replied, we will attack USA as our enemy.

USA attacked Iraq and also attacked all your bases in Iraq and killed many of the Mujahedin. Having lost your landlord, your brother Saddam Hussein, in shocking amazement the next day you called Saddam the toppled dictator?!!

Immediately after the meeting with a US Military commander in Ashraf you were jubilant and claimed in your analyses that we have found a new landlord, and claimed that USA is about to realize our values and help us conquer Iran. In this regards you even asked for full military support including arms, helicopters even air strike support!!

You have been lobbying in the West, US Senate and Congress for three decades with this object of deceiving the West about your real nature. Not only they weren’t deceived but they disarmed you and took Ashraf away from you when they got to know your real values.

In your last audio message you called for revenge against USA and international bodies!? Adding that USA and the West have deceived us and will not topple the Iranian Regime for us, we must do it ourselves. You even threatened USA by saying “be warned about the day that we decide to retaliate and answer the fist with fist and the bullet with bullet, and the clip of you saying that to the Iranian Regime in 1980 before you started terrorist operations against the Regime was shown. You were even jubilant that, since USA has not toppled the Iranian regime for you, is now himself facing the ISIS.

No wonder that you are now trying to make a new landlord out of ISIS in Iraq for yourself, and hoping that when they topple the Iraqi government, will find real values in you and will help you topple Iranian regime?!

You also threatened the dissident defected members of MEK and NCR for retaliation. You ordered the Fedaee (self –sacrificing) teams to be prepared for it. But be assured that even if you succeed in a few terrorist activities here of there, but fortunately the world is united against all sorts of terrorism. Of course Mr. Rajavi you don’t know any other means, you even told the General Assembly of the members in Camp Ashraf that you will meet the dissident members inside the Mujahidin with Iron Fist.

As said above the Iranian people must have thought you a lesson that; they are against any violence and terrorist activities. They have showed it to the world independent of political bodies inside or outside Iran.

I warn you and the world against any terrorist activities that you may plan in the future outside Iran.

I call first the top officials inside the Mujahedin to think twice and learn lessons from the contemporary world and oppose Rajavi’s insane and terroristic policies, and second, I call the world to take actions and watch out for such terroristic threats.

The last word is with the world and not Rajavi, the residence in Camp Liberty have no value for Rajavi but to be used as the ammunition for his survival in the media. Those in the Camp must be released from the clenches of Rajavi. Rajavi has created a cult that people with decades of brainwash and in total news blackout cannot realize the reality of the real and contemporary world. That is why he opposes any independent contacts of the UNAMI or any international bodies with the camp residents.

Ehsan Roshanzamir

Iranian Pen Club

December 7, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Israeli agents training Mojahedin Khalq terrorists in Jordan

Israel is training members of the anti-Iran terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) in Jordan along the border with Saudi Arabia in order to carry out acts of terror inside Iran and neighboring Iraq, Press TV has learnt.

According to sources, who declined to be named, the MKO terrorists are undergoing training on how to conduct terrorist operations in Iran and Iraq and receiving technical as well as information technology (IT) training from Israeli agents.

This is the first time it is revealed that anti-Iran MKO terrorists are being trained in Jordan along the border with Saudi Arabia.

Earlier reports had revealed that radical extremists are receiving terror training in Jordan before being sent into Syria and Iraq to carry out bomb attacks and join the ranks of the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, ISIL Takfiri militants and other terrorist groups operating inside both violence-plagued Arab countries.

The MKO fled to Iraq in 1986, where it enjoyed the support of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein, and set up its camp near the Iranian border.

The group is also known to have cooperated with Saddam Hussein in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and carrying out the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.

The MKO has carried out numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials.

Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks since the victory of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, 12,000 have fallen victim to the acts of terror carried out by the MKO.

December 2, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Are Good Terrorists Always Beneficial?

The current situation of the Middle East has once more indicated the blatant double standards in the approach of certain states to terrorism. For instance, extreme hypocrisy is seen in Syria right now. Western states, Saudi Arabia, and some other Gulf States have been contributing funds and arms to the rebels against Assad Government. Thus, terrorists are not considered terrorists as long as they serve the interests of these certain countries.

The same not-written rule is applied about the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) which is not actually an opposition group but it is a terrorist extremist cult against Iran. If cable news viewers and consumers of US print media knew who these “Iranian dissidents” actually were, they would begin to ask some serious questions about US foreign policy, writes Caleb Maupin of Russia Today. [1]

He warns US policy makers about the MKO’s violent past and deceitful tactics. Stating a number of terrorist acts of the group, Maupin writes about the MKO’s treasonous alliance with Saddam Hossein: “During the Iraq-Iran War, the group became very friendly with Saddam Hussein. With money pouring in from the Iraqi regime, the group formed an armed outfit called the “Iranian National Liberation Army.” They went through Iran committing war crimes, hoping that they could secure victory for the US-backed Iraqi invaders that used chemical and biological weapons against Iranian civilians.” [2]

Tony Cartalucci suggests that the US double standard over terrorism is a documented foreign policy. He refers to Brookings Institute as the corporate-financier funded and directed policy think tank that “has served as one of several prominent forums documenting and disseminating US foreign policy.” According to documented reports of Brookings Institute the US foreign policy makers should use rebel terrorist groups against Iran and Syria. [3]

Despite the above-mentioned documents, the US as the sponsor of terrorist has its own justifications. “Occasionally, US officials will try to justify the coddling of this group of violent extremists with vague claims that it “renounced violence”, the Russia Today correspondent notifies. “However, the group is very open about continuing its armed underground activities inside the Islamic Republic of Iran.” He brings facts on recent violent acts of the MKO hand in hands of Israel. “Reports indicate that it was members of MEK, in cooperation with the Mossad that assassinated scientists working on Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program in 2012,” he writes. [4]

Maupin submits,” The program of the United States and Israel for the Middle East is permanent civil war, chaos, and death. Part of implementing this program is the rallying cry of “regime change in Iran,” and the promotion of violent terrorists who oppose the Islamic Republic.”[5]

The same plan has been designed by the US to destabilize the regime of Syria. The US apparently plans on protecting ISIS for as long as possible under the guise of being the sole force “fighting it,” while ISIS consolidates and moves on Western designated targets, according to Cartalucci. “In the process of “fighting” ISIS, the US is managing to destroy Syrian infrastructure and defenses.” [6]

“The US, however, has failed in attempts to exclude Syrian, Iraqi, and Iranian forces from countering the ISIS threat and now the region is witnessing a race between ISIS’ inevitable destruction and America’s attempts to topple Damascus before ISIS vanishes from its geopolitical toolbox”, Cartalucci adds.[7]

As a matter of fact, miscalculation of the US is not limited to the use of ISIS. The Mujahedin Khalq is not an appropriate option for the West either. While Syrian opposition or even the ISIS forces may enjoy some support among Salafi Sunnits, the MKO hardly ever enjoys support among Iranians. Furthermore, they are detested by the majority of Iranians.

Numerous journalists, analysts, academics and human rights bodies such as Human Rights Watch and even the US state Department have determined that the MEK is an undemocratic, cult-like organization that is widely detested inside Iran.

Mazad Parsi

Sources:

[1] Maupin, Caleb, Who are the “Iranian dissidents?” US media promotes bizarre terrorist cult, Russia today, October 21 2014

[2]ibid

[3]Cartalucci Tony, Daesh-IS is “America’s Dream Rebel Army”, Global Research, November 11 2014

[4] Maupin, Caleb, Who are the “Iranian dissidents?” US media promotes bizarre terrorist cult, Russia today, October 21 2014

[5]ibid

[6] Cartalucci Tony, Daesh-IS is “America’s Dream Rebel Army”, Global Research, November 11 2014

[7]ibid

November 19, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Islamic State (ISIS) is “America’s Dream Rebel Army”

US policy paper reveals desire for construction of full-scale extraterritorial army to invade Syria. Such an army is being built in Iraq and Turkey and it’s called “ISIS.”

The corporate-financier funded and directed policy think tank, the Brookings Institution, has served as one of several prominent forums documenting and disseminating US foreign policy. It would host in part the architects of the so-called “surge” during the nearly decade-spanning US occupation of Iraq, as well as battle plans for waging a covert war against Iran now well under way.

Part of this covert war against Iran involved the arming and backing of listed terrorist groups, and in particular, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) which has killed US servicemen, American civilians, as well as countless innocent Iranians over the decades. Among those signing their name to this plan found within Brookings’ “Which Path to Persia?” report, was Kenneth Pollack. Now, in efforts to overthrow the government of Syria, also a stated and integral part of undermining, isolating, and destroying Iran, Pollack has revealed another element of the plan – to create a full-scale proxy military force outside of Syria, then subsequently invading and occupying Syria with it.

In the report titled, “Building a Better Syrian Opposition Army: How and Why,” Pollack cites the so-called “Islamic State” or “ISIS” as the ultimate impetus for expanded US intervention. However, upon looking at Pollack’s proposal, it merely looks as if the US is using ISIS as a pretext to more overtly intervene in order to overthrow the government of Syria – not in fact neutralize ISIS.

After a considerable preamble assuring readers that the aim of creating a “better Syrian opposition army” would exclude sectarian extremists and result in the same “success” the US had in training the Iraqi army, the document explains:

…building a new Syrian army is best not done in Syria itself. At least not at first. The program would need the time and sanctuary to perform the necessary training, reorganization, sorting and socialization into a new Syrian army without the distractions and pressures of Syria itself. The Saudi offer to provide facilities to train 10,000 Syrian opposition fighters is one of reasonable possibility, although one of Syria’s neighbors would probably be preferable. Jordan already serves as training ground for America’s current training program and it would be an ideal locale to build a real Syrian army. However, Turkey could also conceivably serve that purpose if the Turks were willing.

Clearly, not only is this already being done as admitted by Pollack himself, it is being done on a scale already eclipsing Pollack’s alleged plan – the only difference is it is being done through the use of sectarian extremists – not the imaginary, nonexistent secular professionals Pollack uses as a marketing gimmick to sell this scheme.

More tellingly, Pollack’s plan continues by stating (emphasis added):

In addition to being armed, trained and officered like a conventional military, a new Syrian army would also have to be equipped like one. That would mean not just small arms and crew-served weapons, such as the United States and its allies are already providing, but heavy weapons and logistical support. Like the Croats and Bosniaks, a new Syrian army will need the wherewithal to defeat both the regime and the Islamist extremists. That will require tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, surface-to-air missiles and the like to match the regime’s own heavy weapons—and so eliminate the firepower imbalance that the regime’s forces have employed to such advantage so far.

Surely, Pollack’s plan will never materialize in any practical dimension – however it may be possible to use such a marketing ploy to pour more resources into both the ongoing proxy war against Syria and Iran in general, and more specifically into the terrorist battalions already being armed, funded, trained, equipped, and sent off from Jordan and Turkey into Syrian territory. Handing advanced weapon systems into the hands of front groups consisting of intentionally ineffectual, immensely corrupt, incompetent US proxies is as good as handing the weapons directly to ISIS – and of course – this is precisely how the US is building its actual “new opposition army” – namely, in the form of ISIS itself.

Removing Pollack’s rhetoric about secular professionals, and inserting “ISIS” reveals Pollack’s paper as the actual already ongoing plan to overrun not only Syria, but pro-Iranian factions in Iraq, and perhaps even Iran itself. ISIS is a massive mercenary army trained and funded abroad by the US with its support laundered via Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and Turkey, staged along Syria’s borders in both Jordan and Turkey, and acquiring an impressive arsenal just as what is required in Pollack’s plan to enter into and overthrow the government of Syria – minus eradicating extremists of course.

Even a cursory look at ISIS’ holdings across the region reveal ratlines leading into NATO-member Turkey’s territory and all along the Turkish-Syrian border where news outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post have reported for years the CIA had been operating – unloading billions in aid, gear, weapons, and even vehicles to militants fighting within Syria.

Headlines over the past 3-4 years including, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition,” “First Syria rebels armed and trained by CIA ‘on way to battlefield’,” “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A.,” and “Official says CIA-funded weapons have begun to reach Syrian rebels; rebels deny receipt,” reveal precisely how ISIS acquired its vast resources.

ISIS is organized on a professional level precisely as described by Pollack, most likely the result of US military advisers and their counterparts in Saudi and Qatari special operations. ISIS is also heavily armed precisely as was required by Pollack’s plan. They now possess an impressive and ever growing arsenal of weapons including tanks, missiles of all kinds, artillery, and even a small collection of aircraft including Russian warplanes and American helicopters.

The New York Times, after years of reporting on the CIA’s delivery of weapon systems to “moderate” militants, now laments of ISIS’ possession of advanced anti-air missiles. In its article, “Missiles of ISIS May Pose Peril for Aircrews in Iraq,” it reports:

Syrian rebels have amassed multiple Manpad models since 2012, and the Islamic State has generally had little trouble acquiring any weapon used by Syrian rebels either through purchase or capture, military analysts say.

Iraqi troops – the result of what Pollack claims as an American “success” – have also augmented ISIS with precisely the weapons needed for Pollack’s dream “opposition army.” No less than 30 M1 Abrams main battle tanks have fallen into ISIS’ hands.

Prolific Neo-Conservative propagandist Michael Weiss in the Wall Street Journal attempts to downplay the implications of such weapons falling into ISIS’ hands by stating in his op-ed titled, “Exploiting the ISIS Vulnerabilities in Iraq – The terrorists’ heavy military equipment is hard to maintain, easy to target from the air,” that:

Today, we estimate that ISIS has less than a total of 30 working M1 Abrams tanks and howitzers that are either self-propelled or towed behind trucks (based on our knowledge of how the Iraqi army is equipped and what divisions were in the north). These are the weapons that gave the Islamic State the advantage over the Peshmerga in recent firefights. Yet ISIS does not have the highly trained maintenance crews that are necessary to keep these weapons in good working order. The same problem exists for its armored Humvees and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected personnel carriers. Without maintenance, these captured U.S. vehicles and weapons will break down.

Only, ISIS’ Saudi, Qatari, and Jordanian sponsors most definitely do possess the highly trained maintenance crews necessary to keep these weapons in good working order – since these despotic regimes each in turn possess a large number of exactly these weapon systems purchased from the United States itself. If the Saudis in particular, can fund, train, and arm ISIS with small arms and missiles, how difficult would it be to supply them with spare parts and properly trained maintenance crews? Turkey also maintains a number of US weapon systems, and possesses the ability to maintain modern battle tanks if not the M1 specifically – and is already harboring, supplying, and backing ISIS – another inconvenient truth challenging Weiss’ attempts to mislead readers.

In fact, Pollack’s “proposal” appears more like an after-action report. ISIS is the “better Syrian opposition army” the West has sought all along. That is probably why attempts by the US to “fight” ISIS appear half-hearted and why those the US is supposedly “saving” from ISIS see Western intervention as more of a threat than ISIS itself believing it is designed simply to prolong ISIS’ existence in the face of growing and increasingly more formidable indigenous opposition.

Any provisions to build Pollack’s “army” will undoubtedly end up only bolstering ISIS and its affiliates – just as military aid policymakers like Pollack at Brookings advocated for the arming of “moderates” resulted in the creation of ISIS in the first place. While the US desperately attempts to disown responsibility for ISIS’ creation and perpetuation through an unconvincing propaganda campaign, false flag terror strikes against the “homeland,” and a series of increasingly ludicrous, orchestrated strawman victories in Iraq and Syria – Damascus, Baghdad, and Tehran are leading the real fight against ISIS.

The US apparently plans on protecting ISIS for as long as possible under the guise of being the sole force “fighting it,” while ISIS consolidates and moves on Western designated targets. In the process of “fighting” ISIS, the US is managing to destroy Syrian infrastructure and defenses. The US, however, has failed in attempts to exclude Syrian, Iraqi, and Iranian forces from countering the ISIS threat and now the region is witnessing a race between ISIS’ inevitable destruction and America’s attempts to topple Damascus before ISIS vanishes from its geopolitical toolbox.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

globalresearch.ca

November 13, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Think helping to fight ISIS will get you off terrorist list? Think again

The role of Syrian Kurds in the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State has prompted calls for the removal of an affiliated Kurdish guerrilla group from the U.S. blacklist, bringing fresh scrutiny to a terrorist-designation process that some critics call arbitrary and outdated.

So far, the U.S. government’s response to the fighters of the Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK, could be summed up as: Thanks for the help, but you’re staying on the list.

Shedding a U.S. foreign terrorist designation is a long and complicated undertaking – a feat accomplished by just a handful of the dozens of groups that have landed on the list since its inception in 1997. A designation means that a group has earned the dubious label – and economic sanctions – of being named a “tier-one” foreign terrorist organization. Tier-two members are banned from entry to the United States; tier-three groups are undesignated but closely monitored.

Several organizations have languished on the State Department’s tier-one list even though they’re essentially defunct, with their leaders killed, jailed or engaged in peace talks with the governments they once attacked. Others on the 59-member list have been weakened but are still considered threatening. And, of course, there are the active, high-profile groups that in American minds are synonymous with terrorism: the Islamic State, al Qaida and Hezbollah, for example.

Those three, as well as the PKK, are among a half-dozen U.S.-designated groups now involved in the conflict over the Islamic State’s cross-border fiefdom. The battle is stirring up an unprecedented soup of militants, with five tier-one terrorist groups – both Sunni and Shiite Muslim – on the same side as the United States against the Islamic State, itself a designee. The Obama administration’s unsavory de facto partners against the Islamic State include the Lebanese militants of Hezbollah and the Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al Qaida.

It’s a fairly unique set of circumstances. The closest you have is Af-Pak,” said a State Department official involved in designations, referring to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He spoke on condition of anonymity so as to freely discuss the sensitive topic. “But even there the groups are mostly working cooperatively. Here, you see them at direct loggerheads.”

It’s that opposition to the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL, that the PKK is hoping to leverage in order to wriggle off the tier-one list. The group has waged a guerrilla war for Kurdish rights in Turkey for 30 years and was blacklisted in the United States more than a decade ago. The PKK is closely affiliated with the group known as the PYD, whose fighters are on the front line of the ferocious battle to keep the Islamic State out of Kobani, a Syrian Kurdish town on the border with Turkey.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson even used the group’s fight against the Islamic State recently to rebut claims from Republicans in Congress that terrorists had been caught crossing the Mexican border; Johnson said the four men in question had claimed membership in the PKK – “an organization that is actually fighting against ISIL and defended Kurdish territory in Iraq.”

U.S.-Turkish relations already are fraught, with Washington trying to nudge Ankara toward a more active role in the anti-Islamic State coalition. That task would become only more difficult were the United States to de-list a top enemy of the Turkish government. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made it clear this month that he wasn’t pleased with recent American overtures to the Syrian Kurds, sowing anger in Washington as lawmakers demanded to know which side Turkey, a NATO ally, was on in the war against the Islamic State.

A U.S. diplomat met with a leader of the PYD for the first time last month, ending a longtime U.S. policy of steering clear of the group because of its PKK ties. The State Department has played down the meeting as exploratory and stressed that, under U.S. law, the PYD and PKK are separate entities, though “we’re certainly aware” of the connections, as a spokeswoman put it.

The State Department designations official said that tier-one groups are reviewed every five years and that the PKK was just reassessed in 2013, with a determination that it still belonged on the list. That makes it difficult, he said, to find legal grounding for a fresh assessment so soon. He said there was no de-listing effort under way, despite lobbying that notes the Syrian Kurdish fight against the Islamic State.

“The idea that ‘This group’s being very helpful against ISIL so we should remove the designation’ – that wouldn’t merit a sufficient case, in our view, for de-listing,” the official said.

The main criticism of the process is the seemingly arbitrary way that groups get on and, more rarely, off the list.

Why, for example, is Nusra Front designated when Ahrar al Sham, another militant jihadist group in Syria with alleged al Qaida connections, is off the list? Or take the case of Iranian-backed Shiite militias that once waged a deadly insurgency against U.S. forces in Iraq – Kata’ib Hezbollah was designated, but an equally egregious group, Asaib Ahl al Haq, wasn’t.

In both cases, officials have said that designation possibilities were floated but vetoed because national security officials determined that it was more useful to keep them off the list. In the case of Asaib Ahl al Haq, the Iraqi and Western authorities released more than 400 members – including the leader – in negotiations that resulted in the release of British hostage Peter Moore in 2010.

While the State Department official wouldn’t address Asaib or other specific cases, he acknowledged that adding a group to the list is “an extremely interagency process,” with an element of horse trading as national security officials weigh the benefits and costs of a designation. The final step is the personal approval of the secretary of state.

“There could be any number of reasons a designation is denied,” the official said. “Sensitive law enforcement equities, intel equities and diplomatic priorities – those can all be reasons a designation doesn’t go forward.”

Though Americans are most familiar with the Arab and Muslim factions on the list, the roster is diverse and truly global, including the Japanese religious cult behind a deadly chemical attack on the Tokyo subway and two separate splinter groups from the old Irish Republican Army, or IRA.

Latin America’s longest-running war involves another longtime member of the terrorist list – the FARC, a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group that’s been weakened considerably in recent years and is now engaged in peace talks with the Colombian government under the auspices of Cuba.

Also on the list is Shining Path, the Peruvian communist guerrillas who launched a string of massacres, bombings and assassinations in the 1980s. Another perennial is ETA, the Basque separatists who for more than four decades have targeted Spain’s political class and tourism industry with bombings and assassinations.

The LTTE, better known as the Tamil Tigers, remains on the list, even though the guerrilla organization that gained notoriety for its suicide attacks was defeated by Sri Lankan government forces in 2009 and has been declared finished.

Europe’s second-highest court ruled this month that the European Union’s decision to place the Tamil group on a list of terrorist organizations was procedurally flawed and must be annulled, according to news reports. The Tamil Tigers had challenged the EU’s decision in 2006 to blacklist the group and freeze its assets, perhaps the harbinger to a similar campaign in the United States.

That was the path taken by the Mujahedin e Khalq, or MEK, a deep-pocketed Iranian dissident group that ran by far the most ambitious campaign to get off the terrorist list. After legal victories in Europe, the group hired top lawyers and paid high-profile speakers tens of thousands of dollars a pop to raise awareness of the MEK cause in the United States.

A Washington lobbying firm received nearly $1 million to work on getting the MEK off the terrorist list, according to an investigation of the group’s payouts by the British newspaper The Guardian. The MEK cultivated an image of a pro-democracy, Western-friendly supporter of the ouster of Iran’s theocratic government; detractors describe it as a cult-like militant group with only fringe support among ordinary Iranians.

Over time, so many retired generals, politicians and Cabinet members began agitating for the MEK’s removal from the blacklist that the Treasury Department investigated whether the officials were providing illegal support to designated terrorists.

In the end, the group’s litigation forced the hand of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In 2012, she faced a court-imposed deadline: Either justify keeping the group on the list or approve a removal. She chose to de-list the group.

By then, officials have said, the MEK no longer met the key criteria for designation and, more importantly, removing the label gave the United States more room to intervene to protect the group’s Iraq encampment from the crackdowns of the Iran-friendly government in Baghdad.

But the official line that lobbying played only a small role in the MEK’s de-listing rings hollow when that case is compared with other designees who slipped from the headlines years ago. One seemingly outdated presence is Abu Nidal, the Palestinian guerrilla group whose eponymous founder was shot and killed in muddy circumstances in Iraq in 2002. Even the State Department’s annual terrorism review calls the group “inactive.”

Abu Nidal was last reviewed in 2009, so it’s due a fresh assessment, the State Department official said. Without speaking to specific cases, he added that groups that might appear benign to the general public sometimes are still engaged in activities that the U.S. monitors through classified channels.

“There’s a rationale for keeping on groups that might seem defunct,” he said, “and it’s not just based on unclassified information that’s available to the public.”

Hannah Allam, Tribune

November 6, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

ISIS supporter Maryam Rajavi attacks Obama from French parliament

This week an inter-parliamentary group from Iran visited France for the enhancement of parliamentary, economic and political relations between Tehran and Paris. The Iranian delegation of three senior MPs was headed by Chairman of the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi. The talks were deemed by both France and Iran to have been constructive.

Boroujerdi’s interview with France 24 indicates that the nuclear issue and ISIS were at the top of the agenda in the meetings: the West wants Iran to help fight ISIS in return for a favourable outcome to the nuclear negotiations.

In a panic at the thought of closer ties between the two countries, Israel set about trying to disturb the atmosphere in the French parliament by pushing the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq leader Maryam Rajavi into a meeting with legislators in order to voice Israeli concerns and demands.

But using the MEK will never work out positively for Israel, for the simple reason that the MEK are incapable of making any difference to anyone or any situation of any real importance. Instead the MEK will only make things worse.

The Iranian delegation did not discuss the MEK, nor did they react to the presence of Rajavi nearby – it could be of course that the French parliamentarians hosting the Iranian delegation had been too embarrassed to bring the impromptu affair to their attention as it was irrelevant to the work of the delegation. However, Iran’s Fars News Agency published without comment the content of Maryam Rajavi’s speech which spoke for itself.

Maryam Rajavi tried to claim legitimacy as a result of the failure of a legal case against her and several other leading MEK members. Fortunately, informed people do not make the same assumptions as she does. Indeed, in June a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said France has “no contact with the “People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran” which is known for its use of violence. It has no legal existence in France as an organization. Its violent and undemocratic Ideology has been exposed by several human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International who have reported on the organization’s cultic practices and its refusal to formally renounce violence. We also warn about the intense campaign of disinformation and influence it leads.”

Maryam Rajavi’s speech showed what a liability she and her disinformation are even for her own sponsors. She not only attacked Iraq, Iran and Syria as being responsible for the creation of ISIS, but vehemently attacked the USA too for backing the Maliki government saying: “During these years, not only did the United States not voice any protest against these actions, but they praised Maliki’s measures. The by-product of these crimes was the expansion and strengthening of ISIS in Syria and Iraq. This was the outcome of showing leniency towards the most horrendous dictatorship in contemporary times and its proxies.” She warned: “And now, the mullahs of Iran are exploiting this policy by the West; poised to fill the vacuum created by the ISIS retreat as a result of the international coalition attacks with the militias.”

Yet only a few months previously MEK websites were filled with pages showing support for ISIS when Rajavi believed the terrorist army would overrun Baghdad and take over the MEK camp near the airport.

Rajavi’s speech is largely incoherent and certainly adds up to nothing but disparate rants against everyone and everything. But in that it is inspired by the Israeli way of doing politics. Divorced from reality, Rajavi urges the Western coalition not to work with Iran. Clearly nobody told her about the FRANCE 24 interview with Boroujerdi who said that the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group cannot be trusted. “The very countries that created the Islamic State group are now part of a coalition that … wants to destroy them,” he said. “How can a contradiction like this be resolved? It’s only natural that we cannot trust [the coalition]. We don’t want to enter a political game.”

As though to confirm and cement her ignorance and stupidity, Maryam Rajavi finally mentions her hostages in Camp Liberty and says she hopes that with the “removal of Maliki in Iraq, the French government would use all means possible for Camp Liberty to be recognized as a refugee camp under the United Nations’ supervision”.

Maryam Rajavi has clearly not read Massoud Khodabandeh’s fourth report from Baghdad on the current situation of the MEK and Camp Liberty published in October. This report makes it clear that the new government of Iraq led by Prime Minister Abadi has already put in place plans to expedite and speed up the process of removing the MEK entirely from Iraqi territory. Apparently Abadi is even more keen than Maliki to be rid of the MEK, and the UN agrees.

When a supporter of ISIS sits in the French parliamentary building and attacks President Obama, the cracks are seriously beginning to show in the West’s approach to resolving the whole Middle East situation. Observers may not be sufficiently informed to tell Western governments what to do in their own interests, but any schoolchild can point out the damage the MEK is doing to them.

About Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton):

Middle East Strategy Consultants,

Autor of “Saddam’s Private Army” and “The life of Camp Ashraf”

November 2, 2014 0 comments

USA

Open letter to Senator John Sidney McCain

The Honorable John Sidney McCain

United States Senator

United States Senate

Washington DC

Dear Senator McCain

As an Ex-resident of Camp Ashraf for nearly three decades, I have read your letter of support for the people of Camp Liberty in Iraq to US Secretary of State John Kerry.

The people in Camp Liberty are victims of terroristic policies. Before the invasion of Iraq they were used to operate, help, administer and train terrorists. After the invasion, the leader escaped to the West, and now they are being used to safe guard the leaders in the West by feeding and creating the necessary cause for the leaders to deceive the West about their ominous thoughts and beliefs.

I am sure you remember that the September 11 tragedy masterminded and put to action by people who lived in West and pretended to be civilized people. Even now days people from civilized world who have been deceived, are joining the most barbaric terrorist groups in the Middle East region and elsewhere, which as a consequence the world has paid and is still paying a heavy price because of their evil actions.

On the verge of the invasion of Iraq and toppling of its dictator, we were told in the Camp Ashraf by Masoud Rajavi and Maryam Rajavi, that we must stay in Camp Ashraf for any price that it requires, and if we had to leave, we would ask them to send us to California, to create a dead end situation for US in order to prevent US from moving us from the Camp Ashraf.

Masoud and Maryam Rajavi having watched the September 11 barbarism live on CNN, praising it, commented facing their 4000 members then “…because Al Qaeda harmed Imperialism before and better than us, must not think Al Qaeda is more progressive than we are, ,”. Mujahidin believe in violence to reach their political goals, look at their emblem.

Mujahidin believe in destroying the Western Civilization as Western Imperialism, oppose and compete with ISIS and Al Qaeda from the point of being more anti-Western and anti-Imperialistic than they are.

Your Honor

What I would like to point at is that, it is time for everybody in the west and around the world to face international and regional terrorism with open eyes. Terrorism has changed face and is adopting new tactics to destroy the civilization. They have learnt how to deceive the world and utilize every means to reach their mediaeval barbaric goals.

Especially as a well-known and influential Senator that have great responsibility on your shoulders on behalf of your constituents and contemporary world, with the facilities at reach to investigate about the true nature of the people and groups, facing them blind folded or be deceived just by their appearance or pretense of supporting democracy or women’s rights … is no longer acceptable by the public opinion and the future generations.

All members of the Mujahidin are barred from any public and free media, books, newspaper, contacting their families and even their children. They must only love Masoud and Maryam Rajavi as their Caliphate and if anything else went through their mind but must be daily reported. They are a Cult group and not a political entity.

Mujahidin believe in separation of sexes in any common ground of activity. They force their women members to divorce their husbands and marry Masoud Rajavi as the Caliphate who owns them!

Residents of Camp Liberty are used as a prey by Masoud and Maryam Rajavi to gain media attention to utilize it to reach their goals in the West while they are still at reach by law. Masoud and Maryam Rajavi are waiting as such ISIS to reach the power to show his real face.

Your Honor

But please don’t let your political consciousness be humiliated by them.

Sincerely yours

Ehsan Roshanzamir

October 29, 2014 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts