US Congress

On 25th February, 2025, Clayton Thomas, a Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), published a report titled “The Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) or People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI)”.

Congressional Research Service (CSR) is a nonpartisan public policy research institute under the Library of Congress of the United States Congress that serves the Congress throughout the legislative process by providing comprehensive and reliable legislative research.

The above-mentioned research provides background on the MEK, including its origins, its 1997 designation by the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), its 2012 delisting as an FTO, and the current concerns of the US government about the MEK’s violence.

While the group is still embraced by some American politicians including Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, some keynotes from the report needs to be emphasized.

On the MEK’s terrorist background regarding US citizens and interests the report reads:

The MEK in the 1960s and 1970s sought the overthrow of the then-U.S.-backed Shah through guerilla attacks against the Iranian government and other targets. Some of these attacks killed U.S. military personnel stationed in Iran according to a 1994 congressionally mandated State Department report. The MEK participated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and, after the fall of the Shah, supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, and opposed the release of American hostages, according to the 1994 State Department report.

On Massoud Rajavi’s undemocratic approach in ruling the MEK and its political vitrine the so-called National Council of Resistance (NCR), Clayton Thomas quotes from the very DOS’s report:

According to the State Department report mentioned above, NCRI “disintegrated in the 1980s” as various partners “left the organization because of their objections to Rajavi’s dictatorial methods and his unilateral decision to ally with Iraq.

On the claims that the black listing of the MEK in 1997 was intended as a goodwill gesture to Tehran and its newly elected moderate president, Mohammad Khatami that has featured prominently in MEK efforts to portray the designation as baseless and politically motivated, the CSR report states:

A 1999 State Department report announcing the redesignation of most of the original designees (including the MEK) featured several frequently asked questions, including, “Why was the MEK designated?” The report answered: We have sufficient grounds for concluding that they are a terrorist organization and continue to engage in terrorist violence. The designation is based on activities much more recent than the takeover of our embassy. Additionally, directing terrorism against a government or entity with whom we have differences does not exclude an organization from designation as an FTO. MEK is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization because of the acts they commit, not who they act against and not who they are. In 1999, the State Department also added “National Council of Resistance” and NCR as aliases of the MEK.

On the MEK’s delisting under the order of the then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in September 2012, the author of the report clarifies that the MEK’s removal from the FTO list did not mean that the DOS ignored the group’s past activities:

On September 28, 2012, the State Department announced the MEK’s delisting as an FTO. In the announcement, the Department said, “With today’s actions, the Department does not overlook or forget the MEK’s past acts of terrorism, including its involvement in the killing of U.S. citizens in Iran in the 1970s and an attack on U.S. soil in 1992. The Department also has serious concerns about the MEK as an organization, particularly with regard to allegations of abuse committed against its own members. The Secretary’s decision today took into account the MEK’s public renunciation of violence, the absence of confirmed acts of terrorism by the MEK for more than a decade, and their cooperation in the peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf, their historic paramilitary base.

On the MEK’s propaganda about their so-called pubic support among Iranians, the report is pretty cautious to prove the opposite:

The MEK claims to be a focal point for broad-based opposition to the Iranian government. To bolster the group’s claims that it has support within Iran, the MEK has argued that it has received information from domestic sources on the government’s nuclear program and crackdowns on public protests. Limited public opinion polling suggests the group may not have broad popular support in Iran or within the Iranian-American diaspora.

And, the report once more emphasizes the concerns of the US government over the MEK’s abusive conduct against its own members:

In a 2022 statement to Foreign Policy, a State Department spokesperson was quoted as saying that “the United States does not see the MEK as a viable democratic opposition movement that is representative of the Iranian people.” The spokesperson also reportedly relayed that the State Department “continues to have serious concerns about the MEK as an organization, including allegations of abuse committed against its own members.” The group has long faced accusations that it holds members against their will and commits torture—allegations the group denies.

Nejat Society

The Russian news agency Sputnik on January 7, in a report entitled “Strange participation of the opposition of the Islamic Republic (Iran) in the attack on the US Congress” by Dr. Emad Abshenas, revealed the presence of the Iranian opposition, including Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) and monarchists in inciting the people and occupying the US Congress.

The presence of members and supporters of the MKO terrorist group and monarchist organizations in the occupation of Congress indicates that the Trump administration intended to create chaos and inflammation in the United States by planning ahead and using terrorist groups.

Dr. Abshenas writes: “On the morning of the incident, some pictures of the presence of these people with their official flags in the demonstrations were published in various media, but even I, who has been working in the field of media for more than thirty-five years, could not believe it. That these images are true and I thought maybe these images are fake. But during the day, I received many calls from friends of my correspondent in the United States, all of whom insisted that well-known collections of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) and the monarchists, whose images were usually published in demonstrations against Iranian officials traveling to New York, were also published. , Participated in the demonstration. These reporters who were present at the scene, and some of them also cover Iranian news, and through whom I am familiar with them, emphasized that even if these people did not carry their official organizational flags, they were so famous that they all “They knew.”

Role of MKO in occupation of US Congress

To overcome his doubts about the presence of the counter-revolution, the author of the article refers to an interview with one of his media friends, and finally the veracity of the news is confirmed. Dr. Abshenas writes in this regard:

“I hesitated for a while, but on Thursday evening I saw an interview with Mr. Mansour Farhang in one of the anti-Iranian Persian media, which he also confirmed. “American journalists may be mistaken in identifying these people, but if someone like Mansour Farhang confirms this, it is clear that there is no longer any doubt about it.”
The presence of MKO and other terrorist members in demonstrations in favor of the Trump administration suggests that Saudi Arabia and Israel invested in this terrorist group not only to destabilize Iran or West Asia, but as the fifth pillar within the United States. They also work for the benefit of their masters. The MKO and monarchists, who have seen Trump’s defeat as a kind of defeat for themselves, have played a role in inciting the people to occupy Congress with prior planning.

Mr. Emad Abshenas points to another point in this regard and writes:
“I immediately remembered the words of several Saudi journalists, two of whom are editors of well-known Saudi publications. We talked separately a few days ago, and both of these editors insisted that Mr. Jared Corey Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, had taken large sums of cash dollars from Saudi Arabia to the United States during his recent visit to the United States. The money is to lure Trump to attack Iran. But by putting the puzzles together, it can also be inferred that maybe the money was for something else. And it came to my mind, does it mean that it is possible that Mr. Kushner needed this money to create a revolt in the United States and Saudi Arabia gave it to him? “It is no secret that Saudi Arabia and Israel have invested heavily in Trump and had high hopes for the next term of Trump’s presidency and suffered a heavy blow with his defeat in the election.”

There is no doubt that the members of the terrorist organization are puppets and mercenaries of Saudi Arabia, and there is even a history of ties between this group and the Zionist regime. The groups appear to have been involved in the attack on Congress at the behest of Saudi Arabia and the Israeli Green Light, and may have been at the forefront of inciting people to enter the building.

Masoud Khodabandeh, a former member of the Central Council of the MKO, said in a detailed interview with the Islamic Revolutionary Documentation Center on May 12, 2016, about how to finance the organization:

“As you know, part of the costs of Saddam’s war with Iran were paid by Saudi Arabia (of course, with the approval of the United States) and sometimes by Kuwait or other sheikhs. The MKO’s share of the budget was part of the same budget, with Saddam contributing part to the dollar (through money laundering through charities they founded, such as Iran AIDS in London) and part to the dinar (which Saddam’s secret televisions filmed after the delivery of banknotes). It came out) until Saddam’s relationship with the United States and the West began with the invasion of Kuwait and the first Gulf War. I remember that at that time the relationship between Mr. Massoud Rajavi the leader of MKO and Saudi Arabia was temporarily straightened out and Rajavi was summoned to Saudi Arabia (where travel was secret at the time but later the video and photo were made public) Prince Turki al-Faisal was in charge of Saudi intelligence at the time.

Those years go back and of course King Abdullah was the crown prince and the person above Turki al-Faisal. King Abdullah sometimes even directly controlled Rajavi’s actions. On one of those trips, I brought to Baghdad three trucks of gold (about one ton each) and lots of gifts, including Royal Rolex gold watches and other items, which were later paid for with the help of a number of Jordanian businessmen affiliated with the Saudi court. We converted. The organization, of course, in these three or four decades with the property it stole from the families of its members, with the money it received from the services under the name of personnel expenses, with the per capita money it received from Saddam Hussein and the money it earned through smuggling oil and a thousand other illegal ways. “Open a company, a hotel and a trading post.”

Mr. Khodabandeh’s confession confirms that the MKO organization has served the interests of these countries for many years as mercenaries of the United States and Saudi Arabia in different parts of the world, and even welcomed cooperation with ISIS and terrorist acts in Iraq and Syria. One of the reasons that the United States and Europe removed this group from the list of terrorist groups was their surrender to the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

In his Sputnik article, Mr. Abshenas points to another point, referring to the presence of hypocrites in the occupation of the US Congress:
“Of course, the supporters of these groups may have wanted to warn both US lawmakers and the president-elect that they have a strong military presence in the United States, and if the next US administration wants to improve its relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, “There will be various riots and terrorist acts, and the main reason for carrying these flags is to convey the addresses of their supporters, and they naturally wanted to tell Trump and Trump’s allies that they are with them to the end.”

The question is, will the Biden administration and the security officials of the new US administration, who are undoubtedly aware of the unusual movements of the MKO and monarchists occupying the US Congress, allow this terrorist group to operate again? There is no doubt that the MKO, wherever they are, will act as mercenary terrorists in the interests of their employers and will be a stopping factor for instability in the country.

humanrights.eadl.ir

Library of Congress on the MEK

Role of Mujahedin-e Khalq in occupation of US Congress