The Third View on Mujahedin Khalq

Liberty conditions comply with UN living standards

Addressing the Security Council on July 19th, the top United Nations envoy in Iraq highlighted the key role played by the UN Mission in the country, stressing that there is still much to be done to improve the political, economic, and social situation in the Middle Eastern nation.

The envoy voiced concern about the delay in the relocation of the residents of Camp New Iraq – formerly known as Camp Ashraf – to a new location, Camp Hurriya, prior to their resettlement in third countries.

“Time is running out to find a sustainable situation,” Mr. Kobler said, urging the Camp Ashraf residents to cooperate with the Iraqi authorities and to relocate. He also urged Member States to offer resettlement to eligible former Ashraf residents, as “without prospect for resettlement the ongoing process runs the risk of collapsing.”

Through UNAMI’s facilitation, about two thirds of the residents have moved to the new location in the past months, but 1,200 residents still remain in Camp Ashraf.

Following his official report and briefing situation on Iraq Martin Kobler, appeared before the reporters to share his informal comments to the media.

In his comments, he verified the UN 24/7 hours monitoring at the Liberty and stated that the situation in Camp Liberty is ideal and humanitarian according to the UN living standards. He stressed that the UN monitoring team observed the needed water and electricity therein.

He also declared that the camp could afford to accommodate the remaining 1200 members at Camp Ashraf and the necessity of the residents’ cooperation with the Iraqi authorities.Download Liberty conditions comply with UN living standards

July 23, 2012 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

Camp Ashraf: Promoting a Peaceful Resolution

Through its political mission in Iraq, UNAMI, the United Nations has worked on many fronts to promote stability and reconciliation in the country, helping authorities there to organize landmark elections, draft development plans, improve relations with neighbors and promote national dialogue and compromise between communities.

One of its lesser known, though potentially life-saving contributions, could be UNAMI’s ongoing efforts at preventive diplomacy to avert bloodshed over the situation of Camp Ashraf, where a tense standoff has persisted between the government and an exiled Iranian opposition group.

For decades, the group known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or (MeK), occupied the Camp, a self-contained site only a few hours drive from Baghdad. Yet as Iraqi politics shifted dramatically following the fall of Saddam Hussein, so did the stance of the country’s authorities towards the group.

Closing of Camp

The current Iraqi government has made it clear that it wants Camp Ashraf shut down and the MeK – which once fought alongside Hussein and is designated by the United States as a terrorist organization – to leave Iraq. Baghdad sees its presence, in a place which is off-limits to the government, as an affront to national sovereignty.

When the Government announced late last-year that it would be closing the camp by 31 December, many feared a repeat of the violence of April 2011, when dozens of Ashraf residents were killed in clashes with Iraqi security forces at the camp. An earlier incident in 2009 cost the lives of at least 10 residents.

Diplomatic Marathon

To prevent a similar outcome, the United Nations initiated intensive diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to extend the deadline for the camp’s closure, which he agreed to do. This provided time and space for a marathon exercise in preventive diplomacy led by Martin Kobler, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, who has mediated between the Iraqi government and the group.

“As an impartial actor the United Nations could interact with both parties,” Kobler said.

With support from other governments, including the United States, Kobler was able to bridge the gaps between the two actors and find an agreement that both respects Iraq’s sovereignty and provides the people of Camp Ashraf with a safe and voluntary path to a more hopeful life outside of Iraq.

Voluntary Relocation

The final memorandum of understanding signed by the UN and the Iraqi government in late December 2011, takes the main concerns of both actors into account. Under its terms, Camp Ashraf will be shut down, its residents relocated voluntarily to a temporary transit location, Camp Hurriya, a former U.S. Marine base near the airport in Baghdad.

The government of Iraq has accepted full responsibility for the safety and security of the residents, from the relocation throughout their stay at Camp Hurriya. The accord provides that none will be returned forcibly to Iran or resettled in third countries against their will.
The challenge, to which UNAMI has put considerable effort, is to ensure the relocation of camp residents takes place without violence.

As a result of UNAMI’s diplomatic efforts, a first convoy of Camp Ashraf residents crossed the Iraqi desert on 17 February, carrying 400 people to their temporary homes in Camp Hurriya. By the end of June, a total of almost 2,000 persons, or two-thirds of the residents, had moved to the new location while an estimated 1,200 remained in the previous camp awaiting transfer.

The moves carry long caravans of vehicles across dangerous territory, where roadside attacks have been common in the past, and involve complicated security and logistical preparations. UNAMI monitors the relocation process and provides round-the-clock human rights monitoring at Camp Hurriya.

Ongoing Mediation

Since the signing of the agreements, UNAMI has continued to mediate between the residents and the government to keep the process on track. This involves everything from high-level talks to keep the parties committed to the process, to the negotiation of practical and humanitarian problems of camp management.

“How much water the residents are allowed to consume per day, how the sewage and garbage systems are organized – these detailed and time-consuming negotiations all go through us, too,” Kobler says.

Resettlement Outside of Iraq

In the meantime, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has begun to determine the residents’ eligibility for refugee status, paving the way for a longer-term solution: their resettlement outside of Iraq.

“As Camp Hurriya is only a temporary solution, resettlement is the key to the success of this effort. There must be countries that are willing to accept Camp Ashraf residents after they obtain registered refugee status,“ says Kobler.

So far, however, commitments by governments to receive Ashraf residents have been limited. Kobler has been vocal in calling on states to seriously consider taking them in.

Fragile Situation

There has been no eruption of violence, to date, since the beginning of the process. Yet a slowdown in the relocation process during May and June prompted renewed tensions and recriminations, requiring renewed high-level diplomacy with the hope of resuming the process as soon as possible.

“The situation continues to be fragile,” says Kobler. “It is the responsibility of the Iraqi government and the camp residents to finalize the relocation in a peaceful and orderly way.”

July 22, 2012 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

MKO terror group members refuse to relocate

WASHINGTON // Hundreds of members of an Iranian opposition militant group exiled in Iraq defied yesterday’s deadline to vacate their camp, a move that may jeopardise the group’s removal from a US terror list. Iranian terror group members refuse to relocate

Nearly 2,000 members of MEK have relocated from the land they were granted by Saddam Hussein in 1986 at Camp Ashraf in north-west Iraq to Camp Hurriya, a former US military base on the outskirts of Baghdad.

About 1,300 resisted the deadline set by an Iraqi government eager to improve relations with Iran. Tehran wants Ashraf closed: under Saddam Hussein, the MEK conducted military operations from there across the border. The group has also been implicated in the recent assassinations of Iranian scientists

The MEK members who are holding out say conditions at Camp Hurriya are inhumane and refuse to be relocated. But Iraq’s government, the United Nations and the US State Department say the claims are just stalling tactics.

This month, Daniel Benjamin, the US State Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism, urged the group to cooperate.

"It is past time for the MEK to recognise that Ashraf is not going to remain an MEK base in Iraq," Mr Benjamin told reporters during a briefing on July 6.

"The Iraqi government is committed to closing it, and any plan to wait out the government in the hope that something will change is irresponsible and dangerous."

State Department exasperation with the MEK’s demands – which according to US officials range from the reasonable, more air conditioners, to the absurd, private cars – comes in the middle of an unprecedented lobbying effort in the US to see the group removed from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations, a designation it has had since 1997.

Over the past year, advertisements in support of the group have appeared at Washington bus stops, in newspapers and on network news channels.

A prominent cast of current and former US politicians and officials – including the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations and Howard Dean, a former Democratic presidential candidate – have been involved in the campaign.

The effort culminated with a Washington district court ruling on June 1 that imposed a four-month deadline on Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, to reach a decision on the group’s designation.

The campaign has been "highly effective", said Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian-American Council, a Washington-based community interest group,

It might also be illegal, he said. Under US law, receiving money from a designated terrorist organisation is considered as material support. In March, the US Treasury Department opened an investigation into the source of the considerable amounts of money being paid to speakers and lobbyists on behalf of the MEK.

The Treasury is investigating whether the source of the money is the MEK, in which case it would be material support but MEK supporters say the money comes from the Iranian American community.

A department spokesman declined to comment on the investigation other than to say that as a designated terrorist group, "US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to this group".

Without the lobbying effort, Mr. Parsi said, the group’s designation would not be an issue. There was no controversy relisting the MEK under the Bush administration, and the group is still engaged in military operations, he said.

In March, NBC quoted unnamed US officials who said the MEK played a role in the assassinations of Iranian scientists. Tehran blames Israel’s Mossad spy agency for organising the operations.

To delist the MEK, said Mr Parsi, would not only "make a mockery" of the terrorism list, it would "send shock waves" through America’s Iranian community, which, he said, was fearful of a group described as a "cult" in a 2011 Rand Institute report.

"They terrorise people, they threaten people, they intimidate people."

Nevertheless, the State Department has indicated that should the MEK agree to a peaceful transfer from Camp Ashraf, it would delist the group. The European Union removed the MEK from its list of terror organisations in 2009, and Mr Benjamin on July 7 suggested the group’s conduct during the evacuation of Camp Ashraf was crucial.

"This is the MEK’s moment to show that it has taken on a fundamentally different character."

Supporters of the MEK say the US should delist the group whether or not it leaves the camp.

There is a lack of "unclassified evidence" of any MEK terrorist activity since 2001, said Raymond Tanter, a member of the National Security Council during the Reagan-Bush administration and now a professor at Georgetown University. Mr Tanter rejected suggestions that the MEK could have been involved in the assassination of Iranian scientists.

"How can a group that is confined, monitored and protected by US forces in Iraq for over half a decade and now under siege and searched regularly by the Iraqi military have a capability to conduct terrorist activities or commit terrorism?"

Ultimately, the decision is likely to be political, said Wayne White, a former high-ranking State Department intelligence official.

The MEK was designated a terrorist group long after it had carried out attacks on Americans during the Iranian revolution, Mr White said, and as part of an outreach campaign to then Iranian president, Mohamed Khatami.

Now the political figures pushing for the delisting are those who also want to take the hardest line on Iran, he said.

"It’s just a political football, this time being bounced in another direction."

By Omar Karmi

July 21, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Caught in a Bad Alliance

The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is in the news again. Images of Newt Gingrich bowing to the Iranian dissident group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, after speaking to MEK members at a Paris rally, Caught in a Bad Alliance and Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page’s unauthorized, paid speech at the same event have brought renewed attention to the MEK’s expensive (and possibly illegal) lobbying operation in Washington.

Gingrich and Page aren’t the only high-profile figures the MEK has enlisted in its bid to get off the State Department’s foreign terrorist organization list. The group has persuaded a number of onetime officials, including former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Homeland Security Adviser Francis Fragos Townsend, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, to argue its case. These public figures have taken money, in some cases more than $30,000 per speech, to speak on the group’s behalf. As a result, the U.S. Treasury Department has begun to look into the fees, because, according to the Supreme Court, “advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization” constitutes the federal crime of “material support of terrorism.” The speakers have also failed to register as lobbyists under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, and there is an increasing push for criminal investigations.

As it turns out, however, many of the public figures openly admit that they did not know much about the MEK when they agreed to attend the events. Many were invited by suspected MEK front groups with names such as the Organizing Committee for Convention for Democracy in Iran and the Iranian American Community of North Texas, and they approached the ex-officials through their agents. Former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and co-chair of the 9/11 Commission Lee Hamilton, who also spoke in support of the MEK, told The New York Times, “I don’t know a lot about the group.” Clarence Page told ProPublica that he thought he was giving a talk on promoting democracy and regime change in Iran.

Accidentally or not, though, the speakers were helping to raise the profile and legitimize the aims of a cult group that will not bring democracy to Iran and has no popular support in the country. And while the latest news stories on the MEK highlight its immediate goal of getting off the terrorist list, they miss the group’s real aim: to have the United States install the MEK as Iran’s new government. That would mean war. The MEK may deny wanting violent regime change, but the only conceivable way it could become the next government in Tehran would be at the head of a U.S. invasion force.

Once upon a time, the MEK did enjoy some measure of popular support in Iran. But after getting shoved aside by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s party after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the MEK spent the next two decades launching terrorist attacks against the new regime and its military, harming bystanders in several instances. The MEK joined sides with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), moving to camps in Iraq in 1986 and fighting against Iranian conscripts. Frustrated that Saddam failed to install it in power in Tehran by the end of the war, the MEK attempted its own invasion of Iran (using more of Saddam Hussein’s military munificence), resulting in the death of thousands of its members. These acts destroyed the MEK’s credibility among Iranians. Trapped in the Iraqi desert, the group’s leaders transformed the MEK into a cult after the failed invasion—engaging in such practices as mandated divorce and celibacy, sleep deprivation, public shaming, separation of families, and information control—and continued its terrorist attacks in Iran.

Now the MEK, through its Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, has ramped up its public-relations campaign to convince the outside world that it is the biggest Iranian opposition group, one dedicated to the values of Western liberal democracy. (It just happens to have a parliament-in-waiting and a president-elect—Rajavi, of course.) To bolster its case, the MEK inflames fears of a nuclear Iran, consistently claiming that the country has an ongoing nuclear-weapons program, notwithstanding the opposite, unanimous opinion of U.S., European, and Israeli officials and the Iranian supreme leader’s fatwa against building one.

It remains to be seen if the MEK’s costly lobbying campaign will pay off. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has until October 1 to decide whether to keep the MEK on the foreign terrorist organization list; otherwise, a federal court will automatically delist it. That’s just a few short weeks before the presidential election. Republican candidate Mitt Romney claimed in December that he had never heard of the MEK. Nevertheless, he is using the question of Iranian nukes—kept in the public eye by the MEK and its shills—in a desperate effort to make President Barack Obama look weak on national-security issues. Romney has also surrounded himself with a hawkish national-security team that includes several MEK supporters, such as Bush administration veterans like former U.N. Representative John Bolton, who believes that engagement with Tehran is “delusional” and that “the only real alternative to a nuclear Iran is pre-emptive military force”—the sooner the better. Bolton’s writings suggest that he hopes that the so-called P5+1 talks over Iran’s nuclear program will fail. (The next round of negotiations is next week.)

But the MEK’s supporters and other hawks who insist on wanting regime change in Iran need to understand that, in this case, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. The MEK is a bad ally. It has been a bad ally in peace, and it would be a bad ally in war and reconstruction. Aligning ourselves with the MEK would undermine any attempt at credibility among Iranians because it would make us look like dupes. The public figures who have spoken in support of the MEK are dangerously mistaken when they describe the group as “a force for good, and the best hope we have” (Rendell) and “a massive worldwide movement for liberty in Iran” (Gingrich). On the contrary, this deceptive foreign cult is pouring millions of dollars into an effort to steer the United States toward war.

Jeremiah Goulka, The American Prospect,

July 21, 2012 0 comments

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Iraq’s patience WEARING THIN with Iranian exiles, UN says

The Iraqi government’s patience is "wearing thin" with exiled opponents of Iran who are refusing to leave their camp north of Baghdad, a UN envoy warned Thursday.

About 1,200 members of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran have stayed at Camp Ashraf despite a UN-brokered accord with the government to leave as a first step toward finding homes in other countries, Martin Kobler, the UN Special Representative for Iraq, told the UN Security Council.

There have in the past been deadly clashes at the camp, which was given to the Mujahedeen as a base in the 1980s by late dictator Saddam Hussein.

"Time is running out to find a sustainable solution. The government’s patience is wearing thin," said Kobler, who heads the UN mission in Iraq (UNAMI).

"Recent weeks have witnessed difficulties in maintaining dialogue between UNAMI and the residents, and between the residents and the government of Iraq, reinforcing a perception that the residents lack a genuine will" to move, he added.

About 1,800 inhabitants have moved to a new camp nearer Baghdad and several deadlines to completely empty Camp Ashraf have passed.

Kobler, however, said almost no resettlement offers have been made and countries must now come forward to help. He also appealed to Iraq’s government to "avoid violence under any circumstances."

Iraq’s UN ambassador, Hamid al-Bayati, also called on European countries and other states to find a home for Camp Ashraf residents as part of "a final solution for this problem."

Earlier this month, the US government said the Iranian exiles must leave the camp if they were to be removed from Washington’s terror blacklist.

The People’s Mujahedeen was founded in the 1960s to oppose the Shah of Iran, but took up arms against the country’s new clerical rulers after the Islamic revolution of 1979.

The group, which has been on the US terror blacklist since 1997, says it has renounced violence and has asked Washington to remove it from its list of terrorist organizations.

July 21, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

Mujahadeen-e-Khalq

Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) (aka People’s Mujahedin of Iran or PMOI)

Introduction
The People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, more commonly known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq or MEK, is listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the United States for its killing of U.S. personnel in Iran during the 1970s and its links to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and 1990s. The U.S. State Department is considering whether to delist the group, a decision expected later this year.

— — The MEK helped Islamists overthrow the Western-backed Shah in 1979, but broke violently with the clerics shortly after the revolution and were forced into exile in France in 1981. The group moved its base of operations to eastern Iraq in 1986, but a new Iraqi regime has called for the group to be resettled elsewhere in 2012. International efforts have been under way to relocate the group to a temporary base outside Baghdad and then eventually to other countries. The State Department considers MEK’s successful relocation as a "key factor" in its forthcoming decision about delisting. The group publicly renounced terrorism in 2001 and has waged a sophisticated lobbying campaign in Washington to have its official status changed.

Roots of Resistance
MEK was founded in 1963 by leftist Iranian students opposed to the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its supporters in the West, including the United States. Many of MEK’s leaders–including current chief Massoud Rajavi–were imprisoned by the Shah in the 1970s, and several were executed. MEK participated in the 1979 revolution that swept Ayatollah Khomeini into power and supported the takeover of the U.S. Embassy that year. However, MEK’s ideology–a blend of Marxism, feminism, and Islamism–put it at odds with the Ayatollah Khomeini government. The group soon began plotting against the Islamic new government, killing dozens of senior government officials, including the president and prime minister. The clerics retaliated with the arrest and execution of Mujahedeen. Eventually the group was driven into exile in Paris, where Rajavi set up the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), also known as MEK’s "parliament in exile."

In 1987, the Chirac government expelled Rajavi and much of the MEK as part of a French-Iranian deal (NYT) that freed French hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon. The MEK was welcomed into Iraq, where it helped Saddam Hussein wage the eight-year Iran-Iraq War and battle Kurdish uprisings in the north. According to the U.S. State Department, Baghdad armed MEK near the end of the Iran conflict (1980-88) "with heavy military equipment and deployed thousands of MEK fighters in suicidal, mass wave attacks against Iranian forces." Iran’s Revolutionary Guard killed some two thousand MEK in this failed assault, known as "Operation Eternal Light."

MEK’s campaign against the Islamic Republic, including the assassination of high-ranking officials, continued throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, U.S. forces disarmed the group of heavy weaponry and sequestered it in Camp Ashraf, a 14-square-mile former Iraqi military base in the country’s northeast.

Leadership & Ideology
MEK is led jointly by husband-and-wife team Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, and represents the largest militant Iranian opposition group committed to the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. It is also "the only army in the world with a commander corps composed mostly of women," says former CFR press fellow Elizabeth Rubin. Maryam Rajavi joined the resistance as a student in Tehran in the early 1970s and, at the behest of her husband, assumed joint control of the group in 1985. Feminism and allegiance to the Rajavi family are pillars of MEK ideology, which was founded on both Islam and Marxism–though the group has denied its affiliation with the latter, Rubin says. Some analysts have characterized MEK as a cult (BBC), citing the group’s ardent fealty to the Rajavis and the observance of bizarre practices such as "eternal divorce" and celibacy. Older women were required to divorce their husbands in the late 1980s, and younger girls cannot marry or have children.

Maryam Rajavi was chosen as president-elect of the NCRI in 1993 and, according to the group’s website, expects to oversee a six-month democratic transition in Iran "once the mullahs are toppled." Based out of Paris, she also serves as the group’s chief ambassador to the international community. NCRI’s political platform includes support for human rights, women, capitalism, religious freedom, minority rights, and Iran’s integration into the global community. Massoud Rajavi disappeared following the invasion of Iraq in 2003; his whereabouts and current status are unknown. "Cult leaders generally don’t retire," says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "They either die or go to prison. I’d be surprised if Massoud Rajavi is still alive," he says.

Size & Support Structure
The U.S. State Department puts MEK global membership between 5,000 and 10,000, with significant contingents in Paris and other European capitals where the group maintains offices, according to an August 2011 report. Approximately 3,400 MEK members reside in Iraq. As of July 2012, two-thirds of them have relocated from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty (AFP), a former U.S. military base outside Baghdad.

An MEK front group kept a branch in Washington, DC, until the U.S. Justice Department closed it in 2003. Nonetheless, the group continues to operate a sophisticated network of advocates in the United States (USNews), enlisting the support of dozens of high-profile advocates, including former U.S. officials such as former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former governors Edward Rendell and Howard Dean. The advocacy is centered on the campaign to delist MEK as a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

Until 2003, the MEK received funds, arms, and state sponsorship from Saddam Hussein. Since the Iraq invasion, MEK has relied on donations from Iranian expatriates and front organizations that often campaign for greater human rights in Iran, according to the State Department.

Exodus from Ashraf
As part of the 2003 invasion, U.S. forces initially attacked MEK military targets in Iraq despite the group’s claims of neutrality. The sides eventually negotiated a cease-fire that disarmed MEK members and confined them to Camp Ashraf. In 2004, Washington granted the group "protected persons" status under the Geneva Convention. That designation expired after Iraq regained full sovereignty in January 2009.

MEK had long feared that a transition to Iraqi control of Ashraf (PDF) would result in their eviction, according to the Congressional Research Service. As U.S. forces pulled out of Ashraf in April 2011, violence broke out between the Iraqi military and camp residents. Thirty-five MEK were killed, according to the UN. After the incident, Iraq reiterated its vow to close Ashraf following full U.S. withdrawal at the end of 2011. Iraq and the UN reached an agreement with MEK in December 2011 that would relocate Ashraf residents to Camp Liberty outside Baghdad, a "temporary transit station" from which group members could eventually be taken in by other countries. As of July 2012, the State Department reports that this transfer has stalled since the last relocation convoy left Ashraf in March.

The UN High Commission on Refugees is determining MEK members’ eligibility for refugee status, which would eventually set the stage for their resettlement outside Iraq. UN special representative for Iraq Martin Kobler has called on foreign governments to open their doors, but negotiations are still under way.

FTO Status
MEK was added to the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in October 1997. Washington holds the group responsible for the deaths of several U.S. servicemen and civilians in Iran during the mid-1970s, as well as its alleged participation in the seizure of the U.S. Embassy during the 1979 revolution. Other terrorist activities cited by the State Department include MEK’s decades-worth of terror attacks on the Iranian regime, and the groups’ cooperation with Saddam Hussein in his crackdown on Iraqi Shia and Kurds in the early 1990s.

MEK has been trying to be removed from the FTO list for several years, officially renouncing terrorism in 2001. The group argues that its FTO status prevents it from legitimately participating in the Iranian opposition movement and points to the European Union and the UK’s decisions in the last five years to delist MEK as a terrorist group. In February 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said MEK’s compliance with the relocation to Camp Liberty would be a "key factor" in the decision whether to remove the FTO designation.
The Debate over Delisting
The debate over MEK’s FTO status has attracted both critics and supporters. In the National Interest, national security expert Raymond Tanter argues that "nothing is likely to be more decisive in reducing the strategic threat from Tehran than having a vigorous democratic opposition in Iran." The MEK, which he says should be a valuable component of this opposition, was designated an FTO by the Clinton administration as part of an effort to open dialogue with moderates in Tehran. Tanter writes that MEK should be delisted based on a lack of evidence of its terrorist activities since 2001.

Trita Parsi, an MEK critic and leader of the National Iranian American Council, says efforts by MEK and its supporters to frame the group as a legitimate Iranian opposition group are suspect. Their PR campaign is analogous to the now-discredited claims made by Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress (NYT) in the push for a U.S. overthrow of Saddam, Parsi says.

Others say that delisting MEK will unnecessarily damage U.S. relations with Tehran and harm Iran’s domestic democratic resistance, a movement that allegedly opposes MEK. Muhammad Sahimi of PBS’s Tehran Bureau told al-Jazeera: "Anyone who opposes the [Iranian government] and cares about Iran and democratic principles cannot do anything other than vehemently oppose the MEK." There is "no comparison with the non-violent Greens and the MEK," he said. Carnegie’s Sadjadpour concurs, noting MEK "is widely viewed as a backward and intolerant cult by their opposition peers in Iran."

Notably, the delisting debate seems to be hindering the relocation of MEK to Camp Liberty. Some U.S. backers of MEK have severely criticized the conditions at the new site. Former New York governor Rudolph Giuliani characterized the location as a "concentration camp" at an MEK-sponsored conference. The State Department condemns such attacks. Speaking to Foreign Policy, a U.S. official said "as delicate negotiations between the UN, the United States, the Iraqis, and the MEK continue, the role of these often paid advocates [on behalf of MEK] is becoming even more unhelpful and potentially dangerous."

Author: Jonathan Masters, cfr.org

July 21, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Ros-Lehtinen defends MEK as State Dept anger grows

The State Department is growing increasing frustrated with the MEK and its American lobbyists, and now with two leading lawmakers who are injecting themselves into the cause of the Iranian dissident group.

Tensions between Foggy Bottom and supporters of the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), a State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization opposed to the Iranian regime, have been building for months. The plan to relocate 3,200 members of the group from its compound in Iraq to a former U.S. military base appear stalled as the group lobbies to be taken off the list of terrorist organizations.

A federal court has ordered the State Department to make a decision on delisting the MEK by October, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has indicated that the group’s willingness to complete the move to the former base, Camp Liberty[TTL], will be a key factor in the department’s decision. State Department officials, however, now believe the MEK is stalling.

"It is past time for the MEK to recognize that Ashraf is not going to remain an MEK base in Iraq," Daniel Benjamin, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, told reporters on a conference call earlier this month. "The Iraqi government is committed to closing it, and any plan to wait out the government in the hope that something will change is irresponsible and dangerous."

Administration officials believe the MEK is getting bad advice and unhelpful support from its team of American advocates, some of whom are paid handsomely to advise the MEK and lobby the administration on its behalf (though all insist they are promoting the MEK’s cause out of sincere conviction). The Treasury Department has opened an investigation into the funds paid to these activists, which often come from Iranian-American groups in the United States and are paid through a speakers’ bureau.

An administration official told The Cable that the efforts on behalf of the MEK of Americans like Rudy Giuliani, Tom Ridge, Ed Rendell, James Jones, Mitchell Reiss, and now Newt Gingrich represent "sheer irresponsibility and greed which puts people’s lives at risk,"

The Brunswick Group, the firm representing the advocates, declined to comment.

The MEK seems to believe it can keep control of Camp Ashraf, its longtime compound near the Iran-Iraq border, and Clinton will still be under pressure to delist the group, this official said.

"What bothers all of us working for a peaceful solution is that the MEK seems to believe all they have to do is hold firm and do whatever they want. They are being encouraged in this view by some of their American supporters," the official said. "If you are [MEK leader Maryam] Rajavi and are surrounded by all these people, you may think they can actually deliver and that is just terrible."

This week, the MEK got the support of two new powerful Americans, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA). The pair are circulating a letter this week to Clinton asking her to improve the conditions in Camp Liberty for the MEK.

"We respectfully request that the Department of State seek the Iraqi government’s agreement to and implementation of a number of humanitarian measures. Until these measures are implemented, further voluntary relocation of Camp Ashraf residents would only exacerbate the current dreadful living conditions in Camp Liberty," the lawmakers wrote in the draft letter, obtained by The Cable.

Specifically, the lawmakers are requesting that the MEK residents in Camp Liberty[TTL] be connected to the Iraqi main water system, be given more power generators, and be given new cars and trucks and other supplies. The administration official said that some of the requests are valid but the characterization of the conditions in Camp Liberty as "dreadful" is unfair.

"Really, are new cars a basic human right?" the official said.

Ambassador Dan Fried, the State Department official in charge of aiding the relocation of the MEK from Camp Ashraf, held a conference call with congressional staffers Tuesday, having just returned from Iraq. One staffer on the call said Fried was "furious" over congressional attempts to interfere in the transfer of MEK members to Camp Liberty. The Iraqi government has set a July 20 deadline for closing Camp Ashraf but the MEK are refusing to go, Fried told the staffers.

Fried said the Ros-Lehtinen letter was deeply unhelpful in that it further hardened the MEK’s attitude against compromise, according to one witness sympathetic to his argument.

"From my perspective, these congressional attempts to placate the MEK’s refusal to leave Ashraf is nothing short of irresponsible," this staffer said. "It’s pandering of the worst sort and completely undermines U.S. policy. It’s clear that Ros-Lehtinen and Sherman aren’t actually interested in resolving the standoff, but posturing for political purposes by carrying the MEK’s water."

Foreign Policy,

July 19, 2012 0 comments

UN urges peaceful solution to Camp Ashraf standoff

UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the Iraqi government and an

UN chief urges Iraq and Iranian opposition group to work together to finish group’s relocation

Iranian opposition group that was given refuge in the country during Saddam Hussein’s rule on Monday to work together to peacefully complete the group’s relocation without further delay.

Nearly 2,000 members of The People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran have moved from Camp Ashraf in northwestern Iraq to Camp Hurriya on the deserted former U.S. military base outside Baghdad known as Camp Liberty. But about 1,300 have refused to go until the Iraqi government meets their humanitarian demands, including the transfer of air conditioners, power generators, trucks and other items to their new location.

They had been living in exile at Camp Ashraf in Iraq since Saddam welcomed them three decades ago in a common fight against Iran. But they are now being pressured to leave by the new Iraqi government, whose Shiite officials want to build stronger ties with Iran.

The Iraqi government has set a July 20 deadline for the group, also known by its Farsi name, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq or MEK, to vacate Ashraf entirely.

Anglican leaders in Ireland and Britain wrote a letter to the secretary-general urging the U.N. and the U.S. to press the Iraqi government to improve humanitarian conditions so the Ashraf residents can relocate.

In a report to the U.N. Security Council circulated Monday, Ban called on the Iraqi government and residents of both camps “to continue to work together in a constructive and flexible manner in order to complete the relocation process without further delay.”

He stressed the importance of residents of both camps cooperating with Iraqi authorities and stressed the U.N.’s commitment to a peaceful solution.

The Anglican leaders expressed alarm about the possible use of force against the people of Camp Ashraf and drew attention to the shortage of water, food, medicine and medical treatment at Camp Hurriya. They said further relocations were halted becuse Iraq reneged on earlier agreements.

“We believe that the international community, the United Nations and the people of the United States of America are at one in desiring morally acceptable humanitarian standards for all people,” the leaders said. “We believe that the residents have shown clear commitment to a peaceful resolution of the crisis and are prepared fully to relocate to Camp Liberty as soon as minimum humanitarian provisions are put in place.”

The letter was signed by Archbishop of Armagh A.E.T. Harper, the Primate of All Ireland, and supported by the archbishop of Wales, 18 bishops and three ministers.

The People’s Mujahedeen carried out a series of bombings and assassinations against Iran’s clerical regime in the 1980s and fought alongside Saddam’s forces in the Iran-Iraq war but it says it renounced violence in 2001. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is under court order to decide by October whether to remove the group from the U.S. terrorism list.

The group says the Iraqi government has used its terrorist status to justify mistreatment of the residents — an Iraqi army raid last year left 34 exiles dead — and has made it difficult to relocate the residents to other countries.

Associated Press Writer Shawn Pogatchnik in Belfast, Northern Ireland, contributed to this report.

July 18, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK Spokesmen and Their Cozy Home at The Huffington Post

Earlier this week, Glenn Greenwald reported that, on Tuesday,

The Huffington Post published a post by Hossein Abedini, who was identified in the byline as a “Member of Parliament in exile of Iranian Resistance.” His extended HuffPost bio says that he “belongs to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran” (NCRI). The NCRI is the political arm of the Mujahideen-e Khalq, (MeK), the Iranian dissident group (and longtime Saddam ally) that has been formally designated by the U.S. State Department since 1997 as a Terrorist organization, yet has been paying large sums of money to a bipartisan cast of former U.S. officials to advocate on its behalf (the in-hiding President of the NCRI, Massoud Rajavi, is, along with his wife Maryam Rajavi, MeK’s leader). Abedini, the HuffPost poster, has been identified as a MeK spokesman in news reports, and has identified himself the same way when, for instance, writing letters to NBC News objecting to negative reports about the group.
After noted journalists Hooman Majd, Robert Mackey, Greenwald himself, and others "noted the oddity that HuffPost was publishing pieces from a designated Terrorist group, HuffPost deleted the piece." A HuffPo spokesperson also told Greenwald that Abedini’s post "was published by mistake," adding, "By policy, we don’t publish blog posts by people affiliated with designated terrorist organizations. The blog editor who published it was unaware that NCRI is MEK’s political arm. When the mistake was discovered the post was removed."

Nevertheless, all of Abedini’s previous articles remain archived on HuffPo. Furthermore, Greenwald points out that "The Huffington Post has also repeatedly published Ali Safavi, who is also identified as ‘a member of Iran’s Parliament in Exile, National Council of Resistance of Iran’" and "use[s] his HuffPost platform to propagate standard MeK propaganda." All of Safavi’s posts remain accessible.

But that’s not all.

There’s yet another MeK/NCRI spokesman and propagandist who also regularly posts articles on HuffPo: Alireza Jafarzadeh. All of his posts remain live on HuffPo, where he is touted (in a bio written by himself) as a foreign affairs analyst who has appeared all over Western media, speaking on behalf of the terrorist group. Fox News has long featured him as a contributing commentator and he currently runs his own "consulting" firm in Washington D.C. called "Strategic Policy Consulting" which is pretty much just a phony company that manages his own media appearances and lobbying to Congress. One look at his Twitter feed removes all doubt as to Jafarzadeh’s affiliation (at the highest level) with the MeK.

In a tweet from June 2, 2012, Jafarzadeh linked to a New York Times article about potential MeK delisting and added the hastag #WhatIDreamAbout.

New York Times: Court Presses U.S. on a Terror Listing of Iranian opposition group nyti.ms/LmKMvM #iran #WhatIDreamAbout
— Alireza Jafarzadeh (@A_Jafarzadeh) June 2, 2012

Many of his online bios ignore his clear connection to the MeK; however, his bio on the "Strategic Policy" site and HuffPo itself contain a version of the following: "Until August 2003, Jafarzadeh acted for a dozen years as the chief congressional liaison and media spokesperson for the US representative office of Iran’s parliament in exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran."

When the D.C. office of NCRI was shut down in 2003 by the State Department, Jafarzadeh and others like him created a network of front organizations to continue spreading the MeK message without explicitly using the name. According to a 2004 FBI report, Alireza Jafarzadeh was said "to be running the MEK cell in the Washington D.C. area" along with another MeK shill Soona Samsami. No one would honestly believe that Jafarzadeh’s role as MeK spokesman is something of the past.

At a Capitol Hill hearing last July, Jafarzadeh, along with well-known MeK spokesman Ali Safavi, was seen counseling three of the panel’s witnesses – Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Representative Bob Filner (D-CA), and former Bush Administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey – in the halls of Congress right before the hearing. This would appear to demonstrate even more evidence of direct coordination between current and former U.S. officials and representatives of a designated terrorist group – in the halls of our own government no less. Shockingly, Capitol Hill police made no arrests.

But hey, at least it’s not like these designated terrorists throw parties, attended by people like House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and former Homeland Security secretary and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, in Congress itself. Oh wait, never mind.

It should also be noted that neocon hawk Danielle Pletka of AEI is even disgusted by the high-priced advocacy on behalf of the MeK by U.S. political players. Earlier this month, she referenced the Foreign Agents Registration Act in a post excoriating paid MeK shills like Howard Dean, Mike Mukasey and Jim Jones, writing,

This litany of whoring (is there any other word?) for foreign terrorists is appalling. And don’t soothe yourself with the notion that the MEK aren’t really terrorists or are about to be delisted by the State Department. Delisting is ridiculous, but also irrelevant. Foreign principals are foreign principals, and people who do their bidding are foreign agents. FARA is a criminal statute; let’s see what Justice does about enforcing it. For shame on these lobbyists for terrorists, each and every one.

And that’s coming from a pal and defender of fake dissident leader/regime change hero Ahmad Chalabi. Yikes.

By Nima Shirazi ,Wide Asleep in America

July 17, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Washington Unleashes its MKO Terrorists against Iran

Despite their boastful claims of being opposed to terrorism, the United States and its European cronies have long been the staunch supporters of criminal organizations such as MKO which Washington Unleashes its MKO Terrorists against Iran has brutally slaughtered hundreds of Iranians during the 8-year war with Iraq and introduced itself as a murderous terrorist entity and the number one enemy of the Iranian nation.

Ironically, the United States that launched a self-proclaimed War on Terror following the 9/11 attacks under the pretext of combating terrorism and eradicating fundamentalism and extremism in the world has been a safe haven for the members of Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization which has been responsible for the killing of hundreds of innocent civilians during its years of existence.

The overt and ostentatious relationship of MKO with the United States and European countries, especially over the recent years has been always a source of disappointment and regret for the Iranian people and the families of the victims of MKO terror attacks in the 1980s.

The West’s financial and political support for MKO has

>>Covert Warfare: Washington Unleashes its MKO Terrorists against Iran

been frequently protested and condemned by the Iranian officials and even conscious, independent Western thinkers who are aware of the nature of MKO’s brutal and atrocious activities; however, the US and its EU friends have never heeded these calls and prolonged their support for MKO and other anti-Iran terrorist organizations such as PJAK and Jundallah.

To the utmost surprise of Iran and the international community, the European Parliament removed MKO’s name from its blacklist of terrorist organizations in 2009 and subsequently asked the US Congress to do the same and take MKO off its list. An article published by The Financial Times reported on Friday that MKO has been lobbying and paying dozens of former political officials to achieve this goal.

Since 2009, frequent efforts have been made in the US by the pro-Israeli lobbies and anti-Iranian activists and congressmen to remove MKO from the list of terrorist organizations, thus facilitating the enhancement of ties with this criminal gang.

In 2008 and during the final days of the George W. Bush administration, the high-ranking officials of the MKO launched a campaign to persuade the US government to remove their name from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The US government rejected the request after investigating the materials and documents submitted by the MKO; however, in July of the same year, a US federal appeals court ordered the US Department of State to reconsider its decision. The State Department announced that it would consider the chances of taking MKO off the list of terrorist organizations; however, it further added that it continues to consider MKO as a terrorist organization.

However, at a conference in Washington on February 20 that was organized by a group called Executive Action, several American officials urged President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to remove the MKO from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Lee H. Hamilton, a member of the US Homeland Security Advisory Council who had once chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee and served as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Ambassador at Large Dell L. Dailey who was the head of the State Department’s counterterrorism office from July 2007 to April 2009, General Michael Hayden, a former CIA director, Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Walter B. Slocombe were among the officials who attended the conference and supported the calls for the removal of MKO’s name from the list of terrorist organizations.

MKO hopes to build up pressure on the Iranian nation with the unconditional support of the United States and Europe and destabilize the government by carrying out terrorist activities, assassinating politicians and scientists and funding anti-Iranian NGOs. Over the recent years, MKO claimed responsibility for the killing of a number of IRGC commanders and soldiers, Iranian nuclear scientists and politicians. This clearly demonstrates that MKO is an all-out terrorist organization, but it’s actively and furtively lobbying to gain recognition as a legitimate opposition group.

According to a report titled "The Foolish Embrace of the MEK (another label for the MKO)" written by Daniel Larison and published by The American Conservative magazine, since early January 2011, the MKO has spent millions of dollars on lobbyists, Public Relations agents and communications firms to build up pressure on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take the group off the terrorist list, alleging that the MKO has rejected violence and terrorism in 2001 and as a result should be de-listed.

The report unveiled that many high-ranking of the Bush and Obama administration are "bizarrely" enthusiastic to embrace MKO and support it, because this terrorist organization is opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran and wants to derail its security and stability.

It’s also said that MKO maintains close ties with the Israeli regime. The members of MKO regularly attend AIPAC meetings. In fact, the MKO has intensive and very direct cooperation with the Iran Policy Committee, a subordinate of AIPAC. In a 2009 article published by Asia Times, it was unveiled that there are regular media reports which allude to direct Israel-MKO ties.

However, the previously secret ties of MKO with the West and Israel have become publicly known and everybody knows that this terrorist organization is being funded, supported and backed by the West and Israel.

The West’s support for MKO and other anti-Iran terrorist organizations is a clear exercise of double standards by those who call themselves the pioneers of human rights and supporters of global peace. With their blatant and flagrant support of MKO, the Western states demonstrate the futility of their claims and the duplicity of their policies and actions.

By Kourosh Ziabari

July 15, 2012 0 comments

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