Mujahedin Khalq Terror group

Why Have You Assassinated Iranian Scientists

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani blasted the western states for their desire and attempts to monopolize scientific progress, and asked them the reason why they have assassinated Iran’s top nuclear scientists.

“Owing to their ability to create power and development, the industrial states assume it (the scientific progress) as their exclusive right in a way that their spy agencies embark on assassinating our scientists and intellectuals to prevent the country’s development and progress,” Rouhani said, addressing the 27th Khwarizmi scientific festival in Tehran on Sunday.

“You were informed of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program, then why did you assassinate our nuclear scientists and killed our missile specialists while we have and will make use of our missiles just for defending our country,” he asked the western states.

Rouhani underlined that the world is aware of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has carried out thousands of man/hours of inspection of Iran’s nuclear installations and found no sign of Iran’s diversion towards the military use of the nuclear technology.

Western and Israeli spy agencies, collaborated by the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), have assassinated several Iranian scientists in the last several years.

In the fifth attack of its kind in two years, terrorists killed a 32-year-old Iranian scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, and his driver on January 11, 2012.

The blast took place on the second anniversary of the martyrdom of Iranian university professor and nuclear scientist, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, who was also assassinated in a terrorist bomb attack in Tehran in January 2010.

The assassination method used in the bombing was similar to the 2010 terrorist bomb attacks against the then university professor, Fereidoun Abbassi Davani – the former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization – and his colleague Majid Shahriari. While Abbasi Davani survived the attack, Shahriari was martyred.

Another Iranian scientist, Dariush Rezaeinejad, was also assassinated through the same method on 23 July 2011.

March 3, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Obama pushes Israel to stop assassinations of Iran nuclear scientists

President Barack Obama is pressuring Israel to stop carrying out assassinations of top nuclear scientists in Iran as the Islamic Republic continues its negotiations with world powers over its uranium enrichment program, according to a new book.

President Barack Obama is pressuring Israel to stop carrying out assassinations of top nuclear scientists in Iran Apart from pressure from Washington that Israel give up the assassination program, sources close to Israel’s intelligence agencies told CBS News’s Dan Raviv that Mossad itself viewed the campaign as too dangerous to continue. Raviv, who was updating a book he co-wrote about the history of Israel’s intelligence agencies, said the pressure form the Obama administration was “more than a hint.”

Mossad itself was apparently undergoing a sea change regarding the program. Fearing their ‘best combatants’ – Israel’s term for its most accomplished spies – could be captured and hanged, the agency is reportedly set to shift its focus to other activities. According to security sources, Netanyahu ordered the intelligence agency to focus its efforts on proving the Islamic Republic is cheating on a landmark preliminary agreement made with six world powers in November to curtail its uranium enrichment program in return for limited sanctions relief.

At least five Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed since 2007, with men on motorcycles sticking magnetically attachable bombs to their victims’ cars. The head of the country’s ballistic missile program was also killed, while in October Mojtaba Ahmadi, who served as commander of the Cyber War Headquarters, was found shot dead. No Israeli national has ever been arrested in collusion with the targeted assassination program, which is reportedly intended to thwart advances in Iran’s nuclear program and dissuade Iran’s best and brightest from working in the sphere.

The killing of Ahmadi was widely viewed as an attempt to derail nuclear negotiations between Tehran and the P5+1 – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.

Israel has never publically claimed responsibility for the attacks.

In 2012, however, an NBC News report concluded that “deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service.”

The report cited two senior Obama administration officials as confirming that Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) is behind the killings, though the officials denied the US played any role in the program.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, told NBC that Mossad worked through the MEK because “Israel does not have direct access to our society. [The MEK], being Iranian and being part of Iranian society, they have … a good number of places… to get into touch with people.”

The MEK has denied colluding with Israel, though Israeli officials have confirmed links between MEK and Israeli intelligence.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told defense officials on Saturday the country had given up its nuclear program because owning weapons of mass destruction is a sin.

“Even if there were no NPT (nuclear non-proliferation treaty) or other treaties, our belief, our faith, our religion and principles tell us not to seek weapons of mass destruction,” Rouhani said.

In November, Iran agreed to stop enriching uranium beyond 20 percent and to dilute its already enriched stockpiles in return for an estimated $7 billion in sanctions relief. That deal came into effect January 20.

Following the latest round of Iran nuclear talks in Vienna on February 20, Iran and the P5+1 agreed to a framework on which to strike a final agreement within the coming months. Both sides have agreed to hold an additional round of talks in Vienna later this month.

March 3, 2014 0 comments

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

Al-Motallebi denounced as dishonourable Western politicians who get paid by MKO

Iraqi political analyst condemns MKO supporters

An Iraqi political analyst and advisor to the country’s prime minister denounced some countries’ support for the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK, a.k.a. MKO) as “dishonorable”. Iraqi political analyst condemns MKO supporters

Referring to the delay in MKO’s expulsion from Iraq, Sa’ad al-Motallebi told Habilian’s correspondent in Iraq that the reason for this delay is the lack of commitment of those countries who had previously expressed willingness to take them in their countries.

He also made a reference to the politicians supporting the MKO and said, “Some politicians who have received money from the MKO not only supports the group but they also act on their behalf.”

The political expert said the reluctance of countries to accept these individuals in their countries may be due to the fact that these countries regard MKO members with suspicion.

Al-Motallebi underlined the necessity of the UN’s assistance in this issue, adding, “the UN has committed to lend a hand to Iraq in the expulsion of this group.”

He finally asserted that MKO members are not eligible for asylum in Iraq and Baghdad has the right to “expel them wherever in the world.” “But Baghdad has agreed to do the job in cooperation with the UN due to humanitarian issues.

February 19, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

While the French try to expel MKO, US changes law to save their terrorist cult

[Iran Interlink: ] On 26th January a demonstration and picket was organised in front of the mayor’s office in Auvers sur Oise, just outside Paris, demanding the expulsion of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq organisation from the country. At first, the mayor, who is a long term supporter of the MEK, tried to stop the picket. But he soon backed off when he realised there were many local dignitaries among the protestors. He then tried to play it down and act innocent about the MEK’s presence. Demonstrators carried placards and banners and distributed leaflets pointing out the past and present violent nature of the MEK in Iran, Iraq and the EU including France. The Peace Association, a French association, has gained momentum since then and many French citizens have joined since the picket at Auvers and it has become a nationwide movement as French people are becoming more and more aware of the dangers of having this group on their soil, particularly as the MEK is now being expelled from Iraq, and the French do not want their headquarters in their country. The demonstrators were confronted by aggressive MEK security members who issued death threats and violence. Police are investigating several complaints.

In another development, Obama has announced that he will use his CEO powers to bypass others in order to allow the likes of the MEK and Al Qaida to gain visas and freedom of movement to his country. News before this suggested that the Americans were bending over backwards to find a closed camp in Romania to replace Camp Liberty in Iraq so that the MEK can be kept together. The UN, which is in charge of this issue, has announced that the problem with moving this group out of Iraq is the insistence of the MEK leaders and their backers on keeping the group intact and their refusal to recognise the individual rights of the members. Journalist Mark Glenn had an interview with Press TV which exposes the dark side of this decision by the US Administration.

Obama use of CEO powers, a dark question mark: journalist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Mark Glenn, author and journalist, Idaho about President Obama using his executive powers to ease rules for potential asylum seekers in the US who support or fond of terrorist groups.

The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: I’d like to get your views on this recent decision, which in a way gives asylum and refuge to those complicit with terrorist organizations.

Glenn: Well, I think we can be rest assured that this is going to be a case of selective decision making in terms of who’s allowed in and who isn’t.

Certainly anybody who had given any kind of support to Hezbollah or Hamas or to any groups that are deemed the wrong type of terrorists as far as American foreign policy and of course Israel’s designs in the Middle East are concerned will not be given asylum. That’s the first thing to know.

The second thing, obviously as you pointed out in your run-up to the question, organizations such as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MKO), to al-Qaeda and to all of these other groups, the United States has been supporting in terms of material, in terms of training, funding and all the rest of it.

This is a very dark question mark that is left on this equation here as to why Barack Obama at this point would actually be circumventing the power of Congress and using executive orders in order to bring something like this about, given the fact that the United States now because of its direct support for terrorist groups such as those operating in Syria, I cannot imagine something like this is going to augur well for the American people.

Press TV: There is also as some observers of this situation see a bit of inconsistency with the United States’ decisions of this sort. I recall just a few weeks back, high-ranking intelligence officials expressed concern about insurgents and those who are involved in insurgency for example overseas in Syria would actually be a threat to national security and US citizens on their soil – and now this.

Glenn: Exactly.

We had not only the Director of the FBI, but also the head of national intelligence I believe who was test-firing in front of Congress saying that these groups in Syria posed a direct threat to the national security of the United States.

And now we have the president himself threatening to use his powers as Chief Executive Officer of the United States to allow those who supported these people into the country.

At this point as I said, we don’t know exactly what the secondary ramifications of this are and what these people are planning to do in bringing about political decisions like this, but it certainly cannot be good.

Press TV, February 11 2014

February 13, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US may give asylum to MEK, Al-Qaida terrorists

US eases rule for asylum seekers who support terror groups

The Obama administration has unilaterally eased the rules for would-be asylum-seekers and refugees who the United States says have given “limited material support” to terrorist groups.

The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department now say people with links to terrorists or terrorist groups are no longer automatically banned from entering the United States.

The DHS said in a statement that the rule change, made last week and not in concert with Congress, gives the administration more discretion on immigration.

Under the new rules, people seeking refugee status, asylum and visa, and those who want to expand their visa, still will be checked to make sure they do not pose a threat to national security, the department said.

The move marks one of President Barack Obama’s first steps towards altering immigration rules since promising to take more executive actions in his State of the Union address last month.

A provision in immigrant law, enacted since Sept. 11, 2001, had affected anyone considered to have give support to terrorists.

The new decision could pave the way for networks like the anti-Iran terrorist group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), and al-Qaeda-linked foreign insurgents fighting in Syria to seek asylum in the US.

The US government has already taken the MKO off its terror watch list.

February 12, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

EU must reassess risk after Rajavi orders MEK loyalists to kill critics

Maryam Rajavi has used a meeting at her headquarters near Paris to incite her followers to go ahead and kill individuals that she identifies as her enemies. Speaking to Mojahedin Khalq loyalists on the eve of the thirty fifth anniversary of the Iranian revolution, Rajavi drew a red line between her supporters and everyone else; at one point she lashes out at Iranian opposition groups outside Iran, calling their criticism of the MEK “the struggle of Khamenei’s Pasdars’ satanic attacks against the resistance”, (i.e. Rajavi). Her red line has a very clear definition; you are either totally for us or totally against us.

According to the MEK’s NCRI website, three hundred associations – essentially sub-sects of the Mojahedin Khalq – were in attendance, although the pictures do not reflect these numbers and the associations are not named anywhere in the report. These represent the core supporters of the MEK who are paid to perform the activities which the majority of actual MEK members are incapable of doing. To the extent they are loyal to Rajavi, they are at her command.

Rajavi began to motivate them by first claiming, without providing even anecdotal evidence and in spite of the recent popular election of President Rohani that, “the Iranian society stands ready to change this regime”. She then went on to define her red line: “we highlight the demarcation with the regime in its entirety and we also stress solidarity with all those true defenders of overthrowing the regime”.

To be absolutely clear about what she means by drawing this red line between ‘us and them’, she says, “the struggle of the participant organisations and associations in this convention against the Mullah’s intelligence ministry at this time is the most needed part of the struggle to topple the Mullah’s regime and bring about democracy and the rule of people in Iran. We announce that countering the agents of religious fascist rulers of Iran who are targeting the leadership of the resistance (i.e. Rajavi), is a nationalistic duty of every freedom lover Iranian irrelevant to their political and ideological belief”. [my emphasis]

By “agents of the religious fascist rulers of Iran”, Maryam Rajavi means anyone who criticises the MEK and in particular former members of the MEK who are by default, and “according to the rules of armed struggle [war], condemned to death”.

Since the vast majority of these critics and former members are resident in Europe and North America, ‘countering the agents’ who are ‘condemned to death’ can only be interpreted as instructing her loyal followers to kill these people wherever they reside in the west.

Of course this is never expressed in English, only on the Farsi sites was the threat published. Realising that, as a resident of France, Rajavi would be held personally responsible for incitement to murder, the MEK quickly removed the incriminating Farsi sections of her speech from the hambastegi meli website (a copy is available), and instead an MEK spokesman in Iraq was quoted issuing the same threat. This time more directly as he said, “since we are at war with Iran we will treat anyone who leaves us as someone who has changed sides and we will execute them”. In this context the specific delineation of the red line becomes highly significant as Rajavi is now able to label anybody who does not bow down to her as her enemy , as an “agent of the Iranian regime”. Even those who have escaped Camp Liberty after thirty years in isolation, and threaten them with elimination.

Try as they might the leaders of the MEK cannot for long disguise their total dependence on violence as a means to pursue the very existence of their group. Although posing for Western consumption as a democratic opposition group, the MEK operates as a cult and relies absolutely on instilling fear and dependency on its members. It is imperative that the leaders maintain this atmosphere among the members in order to keep them ‘on message’. As a result, any criticism or protest aimed at exposing the true nature of the group provokes an immediate deployment of intimidation and aggression, sometimes leading to actual physical attacks, even in the streets of western countries. In this way, members (and backers) are graphically reminded of their real role as a group.

The question is, how far will the MEK go to counter the exposures made by former members who are increasing in number and who remain undeterred in their efforts to help rescue those former colleagues who remain trapped in conditions of isolation and suffering daily abuses inside all the MEK’s bases, whether in Iraq or in Europe and North America?

Informed people are beginning to ask what Maryam Rajavi will ask of the members being kept in Iraq against their will. The MEK are trained to violence, to kill and be killed. That has been the MEK’s raison d’être for five decades. It is the reason warmongers and anti-Iran pundits back the group. Loyal members who are trained for assassination are known to already be in Europe. Will they be unleashed soon in an attempt to silence the MEK’s most effective critics? (In her recent speech Maryam Rajavi emphasises that her real enemies – former MEK members – are no more than a handful in every western countries, but she does not name them.)

Judging by past behaviour, the answer to this question is a resounding yes. On many occasions since the MEK established bases in western capitals, it has used violent attacks on its rivals and enemies; tactics from character assassination campaigns to knifings and attempted kidnaps have frequently been reported by victims. Unfortunately, because the MEK has powerful backers, these low level criminal activities have seldom been investigated or prosecuted, leaving the victims vulnerable, though undeterred.

This threat however must be taken seriously. The gruesome death of a former MEK member who had become incarcerated in Camp Ashraf is a vivid reminder of what the MEK is capable of. Massoud Dalili’s disfigured body was discovered among 52 other victims of a violent attack on the Camp which occurred on September 1st 2013. The victims had mostly been subjected to execution style killing. But Dalili’s face had been burned with acid to render him unidentifiable. Although it is still unclear who launched the attack – Iraqi investigators are unable to interview the 42 eyewitness because the MEK are holding them incommunicado inside Camp Liberty – the fact that Dalili was a former high ranking member who disappeared unaccountably from a hotel in Baghdad two years before has led experts on MEK behaviour to conclude that he was killed by the MEK themselves after being kidnapped or deceived into returning to Camp Ashraf. The MEK have simply blamed Iran for his death.

There are further indications that the MEK are actively mobilising to counter the inevitable exposures of former members about human rights abuses committed systematically inside all MEK camps and bases. Two MEK intelligence and security officers of the Mojahedin Khalq have been tracked travelling between Paris and Tirana in Albania. Tirana is now home to some 210 individuals who were recently transferred there from Camp Liberty. The MEK has made every effort to contain them and keep them under cult control, sending minders along with them from Iraq to maintain the control.

Since their arrival, 70 have separated from the MEK and begun to speak out against their treatment in the Iraqi camps. Now, Esmail Mortezaee (Javad Khorasan) and Hassan Nayb Aghad, have been reported bringing suitcases of money (well over a million dollars in cash) with them from Paris out of which they pay $500 per month to each person on condition that they do not talk to anyone, not even their families, about their experiences in the MEK camps, that they do not talk to the UNHCR, which is responsible for the individuals but pays only around $200 per month, and that they work for the MEK by updating social networks to promote the group. Some of these refugees have been threatened with violence and physical elimination. Interestingly, Esmail Mortazaee carries a card or pass which identifies him as working from the Pentagon office in Tirana. He shows this to the ex members as proof of his backing and power over them.

Such activities are not new and have gone on unchallenged for many years in Europe and North America. Many former members who are outspoken critics of the MEK have been, over the years, subjected to mental and physical intimidation carried out with impunity by loyal MEK members trained in security, intelligence and military skills. But importantly, not one of these trained killers will act without the order of their cult leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. It is incumbent on western security services to understand this dynamic and also acquaint themselves with the current change in risk following the transfer of defected MEK members from Iraq to Europe and in particular Maryam Rajavi’s speech in France blatantly giving her ‘permission’ (read order) to go ahead and kill her opponents.

Middle East Strategy Consultants,Author of “Saddam’s Private Army” and “The life of Camp Ashraf”

February 12, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Small Band of Iranian Exiles Gets Lots of Attention in U.S.

In Washington, there are very few issues that unite Republicans and Democrats. One is support for Israel and condemnation of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet the story of how an exiled Iranian dissident group Small Band of Iranian Exiles Gets Lots of Attention in U.S. secured bipartisan support from a host of heavyweight Washington insiders and fought its way off of the State Department’s list of designated terrorist organizations illustrates how power is wielded in Washington, and how former officials continue to influence American foreign policy.

The Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), also known as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran and People’s Holy Warriors, inspires fierce passion among its followers, deep skepticism among its critics, and more than its fair share of conspiracy theories. With its shadowy past, shifting ideologies and deep pockets, the MEK has been called “the most powerful lobby you’ve never heard of.” It has evolved from killing Americans to courting them — and supporting the Iranian Revolution to becoming its sworn enemy.

Violent History

The MEK was one of two Marxist guerrilla student groups formed in the 1960s to topple Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran.

Iranian-American activists protest in Washington, D.C., in June 2009 demanding protection for members of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) in Camp Ashraf. The MEK says the Iraqi government periodically attacked the camp, where some 3,000 MEK members have since been moved to another camp near Baghdad after being taken off the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

“They played an important role in bringing down the Shah,” said John Ghazvinian, a historian who is working on a book about the history of U.S.-Iranian relations. “But they fell out of favor and [Ayatollah] Khomeini condemned them as hypocrites. He called them the ‘Hypocrites of the People’ and said you can’t be Marxists and Muslims at the same time.”

In the ’70s and ’80s, the group committed acts of terrorism against the Islamic theocracy, killing scores of Iranians, plus six Americans. In perhaps their most notorious attack, MEK operatives blew up the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party in 1981, killing more than 70 prominent Iranian politicians, including members of parliament, clerics and cabinet ministers. Two months later, they killed the prime minister and newly elected president.

“That massive campaign of terrorism turned Iranian people completely against them,” said Ghazvinian.

During the Iran-Iraq War, the group was given refuge by Saddam Hussein, and it mounted attacks on Iran from within Iraqi territory and joined Hussein’s brutal crackdown on the Kurdish rebellion. The State Department placed the MEK on its list of designated terrorist groups in 1997 for a “swath of terror” that targeted Americans and killed thousands of Iranians. But the group, which in the last decade has renounced violence, was removed from the State Department’s terrorist list in September 2012 after an intense lobbying campaign involving dozens of prominent American officials, including former directors of the FBI and CIA, generals and prominent politicians, most of them recently retired.

Limbo at Liberty

The U.S. military disarmed the MEK after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, reportedly securing their cooperation in exchange for a pledge to protect them at Camp Ashraf. The group provided intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program — some charge that the information was funneled to them by Israeli intelligence — and began to win allies in the Department of Defense by sounding the right notes about democracy, women’s empowerment and freedom of speech.

Since control of Camp Ashraf was returned to Iraq in 2009, more than 100 MEK members have been killed, allegedly by Iraqi security forces with ties to Iran. MEK supporters believe that the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad is deliberately targeting their group, now about 3,200 strong and located in the former Camp Liberty near Baghdad, acting on orders from the Iranian regime, which still views them as traitors.

The bulk of MEK members moved to Liberty (also called Camp Hurriya) last year, reportedly as a condition for being taken off the State Department’s terrorist list. (From there, U.N. and State officials hope to resettle them in third countries.)

About 100 members remain at Camp Ashraf, where 52 people were killed in a Sept. 1 attack that the MEK blamed on Iraqi security forces (a separate rocket attack on Camp Liberty in late December reportedly killed three people). The circumstances of the Ashraf attack remain murky. Nevertheless, the deaths sparked outrage in various quarters of Washington.

Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) decried what he called a “massacre.” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, demanded that Iraq do more to find the seven members who were allegedly taken hostage during the attack. Both suggested withholding U.S. weapons sales to Baghdad until it cooperates. Marc Ginsberg, former U.S. ambassador to Morocco under the Clinton administration, evoked the memory of John F. Kennedy and his advocacy for refugees to push President Obama to help the Iranian dissidents. Reporter James Morrison of the Washington Times’s Embassy Row column has written about the MEK no fewer than a dozen times last year alone.

Beltway Cause Célèbre

The plight of these 3,000 stranded Iranians has certainly taken up an inordinate amount of bandwidth in Washington, as strange bedfellows offer a full-throated defense of a group that has been described by critics and former members as a cult.

The MEK is part of an umbrella coalition known as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based “parliament in exile” led for decades by Maryam Rajavi and her husband Massoud (Maryam is now the main figurehead). Interestingly, feminism is part of the group’s ideology, and the MEK is “the only army in the world with a commander corps composed mostly of women,” according to Elizabeth Rubin, a former Council on Foreign Relations press fellow.

Critics though say the group is hardly a beacon of democracy and women’s rights. Defectors have accused it of being a totalitarian cult that forced its members to divorce and stay celibate (so they could focus on fighting Iran) and confess their sexual fantasies in public. The MEK counters that many former members are really Iranian agents out to tarnish them.

Despite its opacity and relative obscurity, analysts agree that the MEK has been able to punch above its weight in Washington. The bipartisan roster of prominent supporters includes: R. James Woolsey and Porter J. Goss, both former CIA directors; Louis J. Freeh, the former FBI director; President George W. Bush’s homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge, his attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey, and his chief of staff, Andrew Card; former National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones; former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton; former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; former Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell; former House Speakers Dennis Hastert and Newt Gingrich; and former Vermont Governor and Chairman of the Democratic National Committee Howard Dean, among many others.

“You had people who had made their names as terrorism fighters in the Bush administration offering to speak on behalf of the MEK, which was on the terrorist list at the time, for $10,000,” said Jeremiah Goulka, a writer and former analyst at the Rand Corp. who was the lead author of a lengthy 2009 report on the MEK. (The MEK took issue with the report, hiring a crisis communications firm to publish its own rebuttal. Goulka says he spent a year researching the report in the United States and in Iraq, along with its co-authors, and stands by it.)

Many on the MEK’s list of prominent supporters were indeed paid by the group to deliver speeches, sometimes reportedly charging up to $40,000 per speaking engagement. Rendell told the Washington Post that he was paid more than $150,000 in expenses. The MEK also recruited journalists as speakers. According to ProPublica, the group paid Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame $12,000 and Clarence Page, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, $20,000.

A number of the MEK’s high-profile supporters spoke on its behalf while it was still designated as a terrorist group, often through speaker agencies or third-party Iranian-American organizations. According to news reports, the Treasury Department investigated Rendell’s receipt of money from the MEK but apparently declined to pursue the matter.

Glenn Greenwald, writing for Salon, pointed out that numerous Muslims inside the United States “have been prosecuted for providing ‘material support for terrorism’ for doing far less than these American politicians are publicly doing on behalf of a designated terrorist group.”

An Iran analyst who works for a major think tank in Washington, D.C., but didn’t want to speak for attribution because he feared a backlash from MEK supporters, said that the MEK’s well-funded lobbying campaign, which included full-page ads in prominent newspapers as well as high-powered advocacy, was what got them off the State Department’s list of terrorist groups.

“They are paying a lot of influential people big sums of money to come and speak at their events, and I think that’s had an impact,” he said. “They’re a marginal actor on the Iran issue, but they garner support because they spend a lot of money.”

Hired Guns?

How does a group of Iranian dissidents, most of them stranded in a refugee camp in Iraq, afford millions of dollars to advertise and pay big-name politicians to make speeches? A story in NBC News from February 2012, citing unnamed U.S. officials, asserted that the MEK was financed by Israeli intelligence, which also reportedly used MEK operatives to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. The MEK issued a statement denying the allegations.

Ghazvinian thinks the MEK-Israel connection is credible.

“The Israelis have a long history of using the MEK as a sort of foil,” the historian said. “In 2002, when the allegations about Iran’s nuclear programs hit the headlines, they were presented to the world as having come from the MEK, but they probably came from Israel. The revelations were handed to the MEK because the Mossad didn’t want to be obvious. Better to present the information as coming from this ‘Iranian opposition group.’ It made it look to the world like it was Iranians blowing the whistle, but that was probably not what happened.”

Goulka said he wasn’t sure if the MEK would risk getting involved in covert activities like the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists because, at that time, the group was making a major push to get off the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

Despite being on that list, Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker, reported in 2012 that the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) trained MEK operatives at a secret site in Nevada beginning in 2005. A JSOC spokesperson denied the report.

Still, suspicions linger that the group hasn’t completely left its militancy days behind it and is being recruited as a proxy to fight Iran, much like it was by Saddam Hussein years ago.

‘American Honor’

The MEK declined numerous interview requests, but in an interview with The Diplomat, Howard Dean said that he wasn’t under any illusions about the MEK’s past — or the present-day humanitarian situation it finds itself in. Dean acknowledged being paid by the MEK to make speeches at their conferences over the years but declined to say how much he received, insisting that it was only his “normal speaking fee.” But he said that he would be a supporter of the MEK regardless of whether they paid him.

“That’s what really annoys me about journalists,” he said, referring to insinuations in the media that he was paid by the MEK in exchange for his support. “What they say is, because I gave a speech for the MEK, therefore my argument doesn’t mean anything…. I was never paid to speak on their behalf. I was paid to speak at their conferences and I say what I damn well please, which is what I always do. There’s a lot of snideness and assumptions. If you think we can all be bought by speaking fees, that’s your privilege.”

Dean alleged that many supposedly nonpartisan Iran analysts in the United States are actually on the Islamic Republic’s payroll, and he insisted that there was an “Arabist rump” at the State Department that was soft on Iran and unhelpful to the MEK. He also maintains that senior American military commanders convinced the MEK to disarm after the invasion of Iraq and promised them protection.

“Thirty-one hundred unarmed people get herded into what has turned into a prison camp — we talked them into that. We thought it was the best way to get them out of Iraq in one piece,” he told us. “Since then, the State Department has done very little to keep them safe. They are in danger every single day. They’re being abused every day.”

The group was issued identity cards, but it’s unclear how U.S. officials could pledge to protect MEK members, knowing that U.S. troops wouldn’t be in the country indefinitely. Dean maintained that retired U.S. Army Col. Wes Martin or retired Brig. Gen. David Phillips could verify what was promised to the MEK. The Diplomat learned that both are now members of the U.S. Foundation for Liberty, a nonprofit group that appears to be working on behalf of MEK members in Iraq. The foundation did not respond to a request to make Phillips or Martin available for an interview.

The State Department appointed a senior advisor, Jonathan Wine, to help resettle those in Camp Hurriya, and the United Nations has been in the process of determining their refugee status. Albania has agreed to take about 200 MEK exiles, but no other country has stepped forward to accept any others. Dean says Washington should organize an airlift to bring the 3,100 remaining members to the United States, where he believes they should be allowed to stay permanently as refugees.

“It’s a matter of American honor,” he argued. “Are we willing to let 3,100 now civilians die? I don’t think that would preserve American honor.”

But if the State Department is reluctant to issue visas for Iraqi and Afghan interpreters who risked their lives to help Americans during those wars, it’s doubtful Washington would bring over 3,000 Iranians that up until fairly recently were officially deemed terrorists. Moreover, Ghazvinian warned that action could derail sensitive talks with Iran on the nuclear issue.

“At a time when we’re possibly about to make headway with Iran in the nuclear negotiations, it strikes me that giving asylum to 3,000 MEK is quite possibly the dumbest thing we could do,” he said. “Even dumber than adding new sanctions.”

MEK’s Chances Back Home

Yet some neoconservatives and avid supporters of Israel on the left hold the group up as a possible democratic alternative to the clerical regime in Iran. But Iran scholars and analysts say that notion is wishful thinking.

“The MEK is a lot like Ahmed Chalabi was for Iraq,” said Goulka, referring to the Iraqi dissident accused of trumping up intelligence on Iraq’s phantom weapons of mass destruction to goad the United States into war.

The Iran analyst who spoke to The Diplomat on background said that hardcore opponents of Iran have reflexively backed the MEK, without knowing much about the group.

“There’s a tendency to support any group that opposes the Islamic Republic without delving very deep into what that group stands for,” he said.

Goulka’s report for Rand alleged that the MEK leadership engaged in cult-like practices after leaving Iran.

“Families were broken up, there was mandatory divorce, there is mandatory celebratory,” he said. “They separate friends. They tell family members back home in Iran that members were killed by the regime, so they don’t try to get in touch. They keep diaries of their sexual thoughts and then discuss them. They’re publicly jeered for having them but if they deny having them, they are criticized because they must be lying.”

In 2005, Human Rights Watch issued a report alleging that the MEK engaged in serious human rights abuses from 1991 until February 2003, prior to the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government, including “prolonged deprivation of liberty and torture.”

Elizabeth Rubin of the New York Times Magazine visited Camp Ashraf just after U.S. forces invaded Iraq. “After my visit, I met and spoke to men and women who had escaped from the group’s clutches. Many had to be deprogrammed. They recounted how people were locked up if they disagreed with the leadership or tried to escape; some were even killed,” she wrote.

The State Department itself once had harsh words for the group. In a 1994 report to Congress, it said that co-founder Massoud Rajavi “fostered a cult of personality” around himself and that “internally, the Mujahedin run their organization autocratically, suppressing dissent and eschewing tolerance of differing viewpoints.”

Massoud Rajavi himself hasn’t been seen publicly in more than a decade, only adding to the enigma of the MEK. Regardless, both the State Department and the European Union seemed to have changed their tunes about the Iranian exile group, removing it from their respective terrorist lists.

But Ghazvinian, who has spent time in Iran recently to conduct research for his book, says the group has scant support in Europe and North America, and virtually none in Iran.

“The MEK is the one thing that most Iranians of any political persuasion can agree on,” he said. “They are viewed as traitors to their country.”

By Dave Seminara, The Washington Diplomat

February 4, 2014 0 comments

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

Senior Politician Voices Pleasure over MKO Expulsion

A prominent Iraqi politician described the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as MEK, NCRI or PMOI) as a big cancerous tumor being cut off from his country.

“The MKO is like a cancer that Iraq has been afflicted with, but uprooting it is nearly complete and it has reached its final days,” former Iraqi National Security Advisor Mowaffak al-Rubaie told FNA on Sunday.

He pointed to meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs as one of MKO’s goals, and said, “This grouplet should have been driven out from Iraq and its members should have been handed over to the Iranian government many years ago.”

Al-Rubaie reiterated that there is no other option left for Iraq, but to expel the MKO members.

In January, Iraqi Prime Minsiter Nuri al-Maliki underlined his government’s resolve to speed up efforts to expel the MKO members from Iraq.

Speaking in a joint press conference with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Baghdad, Maliki blamed the UN for prolonging the presence of the MKO members in Iraq.

“We have again repeated our demand from the UN on the necessity for transferring the members of the MKO from Iraq since their remaining entails huge costs for Iraq,” he said.

“The presence of the MKO members is illegal based on all criteria and standards and the Iraqi people are dissatisfied with their presence,” Maliki underlined.

Earlier, Ban Ki-moon appointed a former US Homeland Security Undersecretary as his special advisor for relocation of the MKO members from Camp Liberty in Iraq.

According to Habilian Association, Jane Holl Lute’s appointment came after two years of quite fruitless painstaking efforts of the UN’s refugee agency and UN Assistance Mission for Iraq for the resettlement of MKO members in third countries.

“Holl Lute will work with a wide range of stakeholders, in particular the (UN) Member States, to assist in relocating the camp residents,” read a statement from Mr. Ban’s spokesperson, adding that she will also collaborate with Nickolay Mladenov, the UN representative in Iraq.

Also last month, the UNHCR said 1,400 MKO members in Iraq are ready for relocation to third countries.

Former UN Special Representative had formerly asserted that finding homes for the MKO members “is the most difficult part of the story.”

The last group of MKO terrorists at Camp Ashraf, now called Camp New Iraq, was evicted by the Iraqi government on September 11 to join other members of the terrorist group in the former US-held Camp Liberty, now called Camp Hurriya, near Baghdad International Airport where they are awaiting relocation to other countries.

The MKO, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and western targets.

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

The US formally removed the MKO from its list of terror organizations in early September 2012, one week after the then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, sent the US Congress a classified communication about the move. The decision made by Clinton enabled the group to have its assets under the US jurisdiction unfrozen and do business with the American entities, the State Department said in a statement at the time.

February 3, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq 's Terrorism

French author criticize his government for hosting the MKO

French philosopher, Journalist, former government official and academic, Regis Debray has recently visited Iran. He has written his account of a brief stay in Tehran and Qom. Impressed by the trip to Iran, the French journalist got to know that his visit to Iran was “enough to shake lazy prejudices” he “was not free to leave”.

Debray recounts the “joie de vie” within the Iranian youth and describes the government as”too fragmented and plural to be told ‘totalitarian'”. He criticized his government for double standard and mistaken policies towards Iranians including hosting the Mujahedin Khalq Organization terror cult in French territory and aiding “the Iraqi aggressor” Saddam Hussein in the disastrous war against Iran.

Regis Debray suggests:

We are much more conscious of always hosting on our territory, with visible public support (by parliamentarians and mayors), the People’s Mujahedin, politico religious cult, so far without representation in the country, and with the record of fighting alongside Saddam Hussein against its motherland. It targeted and killed half of the government and made thousands of civilians die.”Where are the terrorists”, we ask. ” Are they with you or with us?”

Nejat Society reporting from the French daily newspaper Le Monde

February 2, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US should not sabotage diplomacy with Iran

The Geneva interim accord over Iran’s nuclear program signed on November 24 last year was a landmark development in the course of Iran’s relations with other countries, especially the United States, with which it directly negotiated at a high-level for the first time since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

According to the agreement known as the Joint Plan of Action, Iran will voluntarily limit certain portions of its nuclear activities, in return for relief from some of the sanctions imposed against Iran in the recent years, including the petrochemical and automobile industry sanctions. The P5+1 group(Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States) have also agreed to release $4.2 billion of Iran’s frozen assets, lift the ban on Iran’s gold trade, refrain from restricting its oil exports and allow the sale of civilian aircrafts’ spare parts to Iran.

Aside from the fact that the agreement signaled a revival of Iran’s economy that was somewhat troubled under the biting international sanctions, it also opened up new horizons for political and diplomatic cooperation between Iran and the international community and provided opportunities for the resuscitation of Iran’s marred relations with the United States and the European Union.

It was immediately following the conclusion of this important agreement that the Western officials, diplomats and parliamentarians began to enthusiastically travel to Iran one after the other to hold talks with their Iranian counterparts, exchange views with them and explore the possibilities of future cooperation with Tehran and bringing to an end the longstanding standoff between Iran and the West.

Delegations from the European Parliament, Italian Senate, German Bundestag, Mexican Chamber of Duties, Irish House of the Oireachtas and UK House of Lords and the foreign ministers of several countries came to Iran, and as reported by the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, it’s expected that prominent officials will be traveling to Iran in the coming weeks, including the Swedish and Polish foreign ministers, a parliamentary delegation from Romania and a group of Canadian lawmakers. In the diplomatic culture, such exchanges and communications signify the importance of bilateral and multilateral relations and indicate the foreign policy priorities of different countries.

In the wake of these determining developments that seem to be quite vital for the future of Iran’s foreign policy and its international standing, a group of hawkish U.S. Senators unexpectedly came up with the plan of introducing a bill that will impose new sanctions against Iran and will even oblige the U.S. government to give logistical support to Israel in case the Tel Aviv regime decides to launch a military strike against Iran.

S.1881, the “Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013,” was introduced by Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), a Republican Senator and former member of the House from Illinois. It’s noteworthy that of the 59 Senators supporting the bill, 16 ones are Democrats.

When it was first reported that the 100-member Senate will be giving the green light to the bill to impose a new round of sanctions against Iran, even the U.S. government officials were disturbed and frightened, because the deal that was signed with Iran after several days of intensive talks in Geneva, and more importantly after some 10 years of inconclusive negotiations, was not something trivial or insignificant which could be overlooked that easily with the obduracy and adamancy of a group of pro-Israeli Senators.

The White House immediately rushed to denounce the call by the Senators to pass the new sanctions and President Obama, likewise, said he will certainly veto any new sanctions that will derail the negotiations with Iran. “Imposing additional sanctions now will only risk derailing our efforts to resolve this issue peacefully, and I will veto any legislation enacting new sanctions during the negotiation,” said Barack Obama in a statement released by the White House.

Following the remarks made by the U.S. President, the Senate minority leader Harry Reid also announced that he will not allow the bill to reach the Senate floor. Any legislation in the 100-member Senate needs at least 67 votes to be able to override the president’s veto, and with the withdrawal of the Democrat signatories, it will not have any chances of being realized.

However, the very fact that there are some lawmakers and politicians in the United States, who contrary to the commitments entrusted to Washington by virtue of the Joint Plan of Action, are still pushing for new sanctions against Iran is alarming and upsetting. One of the commitments made by the United States and the five other countries talking to Iran is for them to refrain from imposing new unilateral or multilateral sanctions against Iran during the 6 months of the implementation of the interim accord, and after that during the talks for bringing forth the comprehensive agreement. So, any new sanctions by the EU or the United States would be a violation of the terms of the Geneva agreement, a deal-breaker action and will eventually force Iran into revising its approach toward the talks.

Like as the Geneva agreement has critics in Europe the United States who believe that the wave of sanctions should continue to be directed against Iran and there should be no removal of the sanctions until the complete dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program in its entirety, the deal has its own critics in Iran, as well, who believe that the United States and its European allies cannot be trustable partners and holding talks with them will be fruitless and full of loopholes.

President Rouhani and his diplomatic team have a relatively hard job convincing and satisfying the domestic critics and opponents who dissuade the administration from sitting with the United States at the negotiation table, and the imposition of new sanctions will simply further complicate the situation for him. The critics of President Rouhani that include some lawmakers, journalists and public speakers say that the black background of the U.S. interventions in Iran’s internal affairs, its support for the 1953 coup against the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, its support for Saddam Hussein during the 8-year war, its sponsorship of MKO and Jundallah terrorist cults against the civilians and its policy of sanctions and military threats against Iran have all made it an unreliable negotiating partner and insincere interlocutor. They say when Iran was cooperating with the United States on the security of Afghanistan, the former U.S. President George W. Bush dubbed Iran as part of an “axis of evil”, and so the future of cooperation with the U.S. would be unclear.

President Rouhani and his team argue that Iran and the international community should move towards reconciliation and putting aside the disputes and the acrimonies of the past in order to solve the nuclear standoff once for all. Acknowledging the arguments of their domestic critics, they also concede that the continuation of the nuclear controversy is in nobody’s interests, so in order to find a sustainable solution for this controversy, both Iran and the West should forget about the bitter memories they have of each other, and negotiate in good faith, on an equal footing and based on mutual respect.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has several times reiterated that Iran’s negotiations with the P5+1 are simply limited to the nuclear issue, and this is how the Iranian government has decided to address the concerns of those inside Iran who believe that Iran should not show leniency toward the United States, a country which has already demonstrated its unconditional animosity and hostility toward Iran well over the past three decades.

But the hawkish, extremist figures in the U.S. political sphere, whether in the government, the Congress or the media, should carefully note that the door for diplomacy would not always remain open, and the chances to reach for a categorical, definite resolution of the decade-long nuclear controversy are limited.

They should pay attention to the fact that President Rouhani’s administration has embarked on a very sensitive endeavor for directly talking to the United States, which many people inside Iran don’t think of positively. Any new sanctions against Iran under any baseless pretext would mean a violation of the Geneva agreement, the termination of its implementation and possibly an end to the long-sought talks. A peaceful and diplomatic resolution of the nuclear controversy would be beneficial to all parties, and will immensely contribute to regional peace and security. These pro-Israeli Senators who are certainly fueled and empowered by Tel Aviv should come to the understanding that pleasing Netanyahu and Shimon Peres at the expense of the interests of their own people and the people of the world is not a logical or relevant decision. Somebody should ask them not to kill the unprecedented chances that have emerged for a peaceful and viable diplomacy with Iran.

By Kourosh Ziabari

AB/AB

Kourosh Ziabari is an award-winning Iranian journalist, media correspondent and peace activist. He has interviewed several prominent politicians, university professors, academics and media personalities. His articles and interviews have appeared on publications in Iran and across the world. He has won a presidential award in the National Iranian Youth Festival and three awards in Iran’s national press festival. His papers have been presented at conferences in Canada, Italy, Turkey and Czech Republic. He is a graduate of English language and literature and was the member of World Student Community for Sustainable Development.” You can visit his website at www.kouroshziabari.com.

January 27, 2014 0 comments

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