Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Open letter to Mrs. Dana M Popa, Romania

Ali Akbar Rastgou

Dear Mrs Popa,

by your home page – www.freeiran-romania.org -, we took notice of the „Comitetul Parlamentarilor Romani Pentru Iranul Liber“. As an Iranian-exile-association from Germany, we also campaign for human rights and democracy in Iran.

However it is conspicuous, that the statements and reports on your home page nearly exclusively deal with the well known claims and demands of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (MEK/MKO/PMOI).

The MEK has no political significance inside Iran and is not the right way forward to get involved with a free and democratic Iran.

Similar to the other European support-organizations, like the „Deutsch Solidaritätskommitee für einen freien Iran (DSFI)“, „The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom“ – http://iran-freedom.org/ – or „Friends of a Free Iran“ in the European Parliament, the „Comitetul Parlamentarilor Romani Pentru Iranul Liber“ seem to be just another lobby-organization and mouthpiece of the MEK.

Such a commitment only aids the MEK and not the people inside Iran.

A first step showing real humanitarian commitment could be, urging the Romanian government to take some refugees from Camp Liberty and save them from further attacks.

In contrast the MEK at any cost tries to keep their members together, to easier indoctrinate and control them. At the moment the Liberty-residents pay the price of permanent fear of further attacks and deaths.

The fact, that again and again European politicians feel up to disseminate those contradictory and escapist demands of the MEK without reflecting about seem to militate for the PR and lobbying of the MEK.

With such a blind commitment you run the risk of losing your political credibility as some European politicians hat to learn already.

For much background information about the lobbying of the MEK, please contact us.

With best regards,

AAWA Association e.V.

Dipl. Ing. Ali Akbar Rastgou

(Chairman)

Cc:

-1 ‌Romeo Florin Nicoara

2-Maria Grecea

3-Titus Pasca

4-Elena -Ramona Uioreanu

5 -Ben-Oni Ardelean

6-Rozalia Ibilya Brio

7-Mario-Ovidio Oprea

8-Ovidiu-Ioan Dumitru

Ali Akbar Rastgou, Aawa Association, Germany

January 12, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

British MPs consider the MKO terrorist

Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who was heading a parliamentary delegation during a three-day visit to Iran, had a press conference in the Iranian capital on Wednesday, January 8. Jack Straw confirmed that the UK government condemned any form of terrorism

To answer a question on the support for the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) and its terror acts by the British Government, Jack Straw said that when in 2009 he was the UK Justice Minister, he passed legislation based on which the MKO was outlawed in Britain and was considered a terrorist entity.

”The MKO is a terrorist organization", he added. After the MKO was listed as a terrorist group in 2009, the group petitioned its case to the appeal court and ultimately the court ordered its delisting.

The UK delegation also visited a number of families of terror victims killed by terrorist groups, such as Mujahedin khalq on Thursday. The son of one of the victims of the MKO asked the UK officials to return the MKO to the list of terrorist groups.

Families of assassinated nuclear scientists asked the British MPs to tie bans on trafficking of the MKO terrorists in Europe.

Jack Straw confirmed that the UK government condemned any form of terrorism. "The British government has condemned the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientists", he said.

Ben wallace another member of the UK parliamentarian delegation spoke of the probability of relisting of the MKO as a terror group.

The Britain-Iran Parliamentary Friendship Group seeks better relations with Iran. The delegates met with counterparts from the Iranian Majlis.

January 11, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MKO terrorists behind Iran bombings seen in Germany

Two terrorists behind the 1981 bombings of then Iranian prime minister’s office and the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party have been reportedly spotted in Germany. MKO terrorists behind Iran bombings seen in Germany

Massoud Kashmiri and Mohammad Reza Kolahi Samadi are both members of the anti-Iran terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), an informed source told IRNA.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, added that the two men were seen while dining out in the German city of Cologne and driving to Hamburg under fake identities.

Kashmiri masterminded the terrorist bombing of the office of former President Mohammad Ali Rajaei and his Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar on August 30, 1981.

Mohammad Reza Kolahi Samadi was behind the terrorist bomb attack on the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party on June 28, 1981. More than 72 Iranian state officials and lawmakers, including then Judiciary chief Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, lost their lives in the blast.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community and has committed numerous terrorist acts against Iranians and Iraqis.

The group fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where it received the support of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein and set up Camp Ashraf near the Iranian border.

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

The US formally removed the MKO from its list of foreign terrorist organizations in September 2012 one week after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent the Congress a classified communication about the move.

December 25, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Derailing diplomacy: MEK weighs in on Iran nuke talks & Tom Ridge interview

Last week while the outlines of a historic interim deal were being hashed out between the P5+1 nations and Iran, a last ditch effort to derail diplomacy and garner support for regime change in the Islamic Republic took place on Capitol Hill organized by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, also known as the the MEK. VOR’s Sean Nevins writes about the event, as well as his one-on-one interview with former Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, and a discussion with the MEK’s political arm.

The MEK, which according to U.S. Department of State, has been involved in the assassinations of American citizens and committed abuse against its own members, held a congressional briefing about a group of MEK members that were kidnapped following an attack on their compound in Iraq on September 1st of this year.

Prominent US officials, such as John Bolton (Fmr. US Ambassador to the United Nations), Tom Ridge and Brad Sherman (D-CA), attended and spoke on behalf of the MEK.

However, rather than focusing on the legitimately tragic events that took place against the MEK and its compound in Iraq, speakers zeroed in on the Iranian nuclear deal and its potential problems while also supporting regime change in the country.

Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas’s 18th District, said, “I want to see Iran disarmed, totally disarmed” while Randy Weber, a Republican also from Texas, said, “We need regime change. That’s pure and simple.”

None of the speakers over the two-hour time span supported diplomatic efforts taking place in Geneva.

A one-on-one with Tom Ridge (Fmr. Secretary of Homeland Security)

Following the briefing, Voice of Russia, intercepted Tom Ridge and asked him about his support for the MEK, an organization that has killed American citizens in the past. He denied the veracity of the claims, calling them “allegations,” and said that, if true, “the people at Liberty and Ashraf [the camps in Iraq] weren’t involved in those… assassinations back then”. This answer is despite the that fact that the State Department, Human Rights Watch, and the Rand Corporation say that the MEK was involved with those killings.

Additionally, Voice of Russia asked the former Secretary about allegations by the same aforementioned organizations that the MEK has abused its own members in the Iraqi camps. Again, the Secretary challenged the veracity of the claims. He said, “I think the Rand report, I’m not sure about the Human Rights [Watch report], has been discredited for many, many years.” This answer also came despite the fact that the State Department has said, “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.”

With regards to the talks going on in Geneva at the time, Ridge told Voice of Russia, “I think a bad deal is worse than no deal.” During his presentation, he also emphasized that he did not support negotiations.

My own encounter with the MEK

Following my discussion with Tom Ridge, two people named Ali Safavi and Ben Borhani, from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which is a political arm of the MEK, approached me to inquire about my questioning of the Secretary. They claimed that my concerns were part of a massive propaganda campaign targeted against the MEK by the Iranian regime.

I invited Mr. Safavi to come into the Voice of Russia studio on another date to voice his organization’s views, and so I could moderate a debate between himself and, if possible, a member of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). I have no idea if a member of NIAC would agree to such a debate but will not have to find out as Mr. Safavi declined the request. He then alleged that Trita Parsi, the president of NIAC, is “acting as a lobby for the [Iranian] regime”, which is laughable as NIAC is stalwart in their criticisms of human rights violations by the Ayatollah and other government officials in Iran. For example, NIAC frequently criticizes the Iranian government’s treatment of Bahais, who are not allowed to attend university in Iran, and are frequently murdered and imprisoned for their beliefs.

However, Mr. Safavi did invite VOR into the NCRI offices to further discuss his organization and its plans, which we will do in the near future.

The 2009 Rand report on the MEK says they are “skilled manipulators of public opinion”. It says that the group has a “long history of deception”. Included in the report is an account of how the MEK has lied to the US government in the past in order to achieve favorable status as detainees at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

Sean Nevins, Voice of Russia (VOR)

November 27, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Mojahedin Khalq spending spree suffers backlash in Washington

Lindsey Graham returns donation to Iranian exile group

Masood Abooali contributed $2,600 in August to Sen. Lindsey Graham’s reelection campaign. The next month, the Iranian-American received a refund, along with a terse explanation: The campaign was “uncomfortable” with some of his associations and had rejected his contribution. Lindsey Graham returns donation to Iranian exile group

Abooali, a 56-year-old engineer who lives in Northern Virginia, left Iran 30 years ago and is now a U.S. citizen. He said in an interview he’s a former political prisoner — detained three times for a total of two years — of the regime in Iran that came to power in its 1979 revolution.

He’s also a supporter — but, he emphasized, not a member — of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, known as the MEK, a leftist group of Iranian exiles pushing for the overthrow of the regime.

Last year, the State Department removed the MEK from its list of designated terrorist organizations after a number of defense heavyweights spoke out on the group’s behalf, including former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and Frances Townsend, who was a homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush.

For his part, Abooali said his “past is clear of any violence or any activity against the United States, which I am proudly a citizen of.”

“I’m a hardworking family man concerned for my family that I left behind, concerned for my mother who I haven’t seen in 30 years,” he said, explaining that he contributed to Graham’s reelection campaign because of the South Carolina Republican’s hard-line stance on sanctions against the Iranian government and his denunciation of its human rights abuses.

“To me,” Abooali added, “the politics of appeasement is hurting us.”

Graham is very much a hard-liner on the issue. The outspoken member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who faces several conservative primary challengers back home, is pressing for stepped-up sanctions against the Islamic Republic even as the Obama administration works to clinch a deal to curb the country’s nuclear program.

Graham’s push for tougher sanctions — an issue that could become a sticking point this week with the Senate expected to take up its annual defense authorization bill — has won him the backing of a number of supporters of the MEK.

His roster of donors last quarter includes two names that match those listed as having signed a 2011 letter urging then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to overturn the group’s terrorist designation. Others match the names of those listed as having commented in support of the group in online forums or signed pro-MEK petitions.

Each of the contributions was refunded.

“During routine due diligence by campaign staff, it was discovered that a few donors had associations the campaign was uncomfortable with,” said campaign spokesman Tate Zeigler, who declined to provide further details.

“In an abundance of caution,” he said, “the contributions were refunded.”

Last quarter, the Graham campaign sent refunds to 24 donors totaling $44,825 according to its latest filings with the Federal Election Commission. But not all of the refunds were because of the contributors’ associations, Zeigler said. A “significant number” were because the donors “had exceeded their federal limit.”

In all, Graham’s campaign hauled in $1.2 million in the past quarter and has raised $6.2 million this election cycle. His recent donors include the political action committees for a number of top defense contractors — Raytheon, General Atomics and BAE Systems, among others — along with a personal contribution from former President Bush.

Abooali said he had no hard feelings over his rejected contribution, noting that Graham never asked for his support. He also said he would donate again to “any politician who takes sides with the Iranian people” and works to strengthen sanctions against the regime.

Earlier this year, Abooali contributed to two other Iran hawks, giving $2,600 to Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and $1,000 to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Neither campaign reported sending Abooali a refund, nor did either respond to questions about whether they have concerns about accepting donations from a supporter of the MEK.

The State Department revoked the group’s designation as a foreign terrorist organization in September 2012, saying its decision was based on three factors: The MEK had renounced violence, its members hadn’t committed any “confirmed acts of terrorism” in more than a decade and it had cooperated in “the peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf,” a refugee camp in Iraq where thousands of members of the MEK had lived in exile since the 1980s.

“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,” a senior State Department official said last year, speaking to reporters on background.

The decision came after a lobbying blitz — complete with television ads, speaking gigs and columns in a number of major newspapers — urging Clinton to overturn the terrorist designation, which dated to 1997.

Last year, for example, Ridge co-wrote a pro-MEK op-ed with retired Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Hugh Shelton and former Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island.

“The regime in Tehran views MEK as an existential threat because MEK strives to replace the unelected, clerical regime with a liberal democracy that champions a non-nuclear Iranian future, equal rights for women and minorities, and a free press,” they wrote in the op-ed, published online by Fox News.

“But,” they continued, “the major opposition to the mullahs is being prevented from realizing these dreams of freedom for the Iranian people because both Iran and the U.S. designate them as a terrorist organization.”

Austin Wright, Politico

November 16, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

European Citizens and the panic of the MKO terror Cult

Terrorism is an intentional act of violence which causes fear in the target audience or society; it’s a political act, the goal of which is to make a change. The terrorist is not driven by personal desires or ambitions but what if the terrorist group is also characterized as a cult of personality? A terrorist cult of personality is driven by personal desires and ambitions of its leader. The Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) is known as a cult of personality around the wife-husband guru Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.

Assuming that the MKO is not engaged in acts of violence any more, precautionary steps should be taken when dealing with this cult because of its past violence. In the late October, the British Secretary of State for the Home Department was asked by the UK Parliament member Menzier Campbell about the current immigration status of the 52 Liberty residents who are seeking resettlement in the UK. The answer was that none of the 52 residents of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty who were previously settled in the UK have any current immigration status in the UK. He said," We have agreed to consider, exceptionally, their re-admission as refugees, subject to a UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) assessment of each individual to ensure that none have been complicit in acts of terrorism or other activities incompatible with refugee status."[1] No decision has yet been made on the status of the 17 MKO members whose assessments have been submitted to the Home Office, according to Mark Harper. Similar to most European countries the UK seems to be unwilling to receive members of this cult.

Chris McGreal of the Guardian concludes in his article on the MKO as a sponsored terror group that the group has not changed at all . ”It has certainly abandoned violence, at least for now,” writes Mc Greal. “But that is in part because it was forcibly disarmed by the US army in Iraq.” The Guardian correspondent describes the MKO as “far from democratic” referring to the US State Department report on the group. "It is autocratically run by a husband and wife, Masud and Maryam Rajavi, who the state department say have “fostered a cult of personality”, Mc Greal states. [2]

In November 2007 the Proscribed Organizations Appeal commission (POAC) ruled that the British government’s decision to keep the MKO in the list of terrorist organizations was” perverse” and must be set aside. The ruling was backed by a number of well-paid parliament members. However, the UK government argued that the MKO had only temporarily ceased terrorism for “pragmatic reasons”. [3]

A Home Office spokesman told the Guardian in February 2008,”We believe there is a risk of the PMOI returning to terrorism in the future that warrants its continuing proscription in this country”.[4] Nonetheless, the United Kingdom was the first country to delist the MKO in 2008. The move was denounced by many peace activists and journalists who warned about the risk of supporting a terror cult with a track record of violence and cult-like practices. In 2011, the US was going on the same path the UK had gone: delisting the MKO. A Large number of former US high profiles were running the MKO’s lobby in the Congress in order to remove it from the FTO list. A guardian piece authored by Matthew Partridge was published under the title "Britain and America should beware supporting the Mujahideen-e- Khalq”. [5]

Partridge notifies the MKO’s unpredictable behavior as an opportunist organization:"Ironically, before its split with Ayatollah Khomeini, its leaders worked closely with Iran’s theocratic government, directly participating in the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran. This raises the obvious risk that if Britain and America covertly, or overtly, supports MEK, it could then cut a deal with Tehran and turn its guns on Europe and America." [6] Although Partridge assertion is not precisely accurate – Iranian nation will never forget the MKO’s atrocities and treasons against its own country fellowmen so no deal will be reached – the warning about the MKO’s substance is truly stated.

Today the UK is now authentically facing the risk of receiving a number of fanatic cult members with dark background in violence. It seems that the UK’s decision to delist the MKO in 2008 was a political act – whether to put pressure on Islamic Republic or to appease the enemy of UK’s enemy. However, the danger that is facing now cannot be ignored. Today, the safety and security of British citizens matter. An example of such a risk took place, in June 2003, after the arrest of Maryam Rajavi by the French Police. Radical behavior of cult followers who set themselves on fire in European capitals to protest their leader’s arrest, illustrated an image of the undemocratic, extremist nature of the MKO.

Moreover, the residents of camp Liberty who are held as hostages by the group officials have no way out except to be checked and received by third countries. The UK Government that is acting so cautiously to admit 17 people should have been more cautious when it first lifted ban on the group. This coin has two sides. A terrorist cult of personality does jeopardize both friends and enemies.

By Mazda Parsi

Sources:

[1]UK Parliament, Britain may admit 17 Liberty residents with no links to terrorism, October 30, 2013

[2]Mc Greal, Chris, Q&A what is the MEK and why did the US call it a terrorist organization? The Guardian, September21, 2012

[3]Dyer, Clare, British Government fights to keep ban on main Iranian Opposition group, the Guardian, February 23, 2008

[4]ibid

[5] Partridge, Matthew, Britain and America should beware supporting the Mujahiddin-e-Khalq, the Guardian, January9, 2011

[6]ibid

November 7, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

The MKO-Israeli Spying network

While the Israeli security forces announced the arrest of an Iranian-born with Belgium citizenship accusing him of spying for Tehran, the Iranian officials said they have arrested Israeli spies for planning to sabotage nuclear sites. However, Mujahedin Khalq Organization admitted its organizational connection with the suspect tried in Israeli court. The propaganda arm of the MKO, National Council of Resistance the NCR announced a statement to desperately try to deny Mansouri’s current link with the group.

Apparently the MKO’s statement is a reaction to what the Belguim’s newspaper Le Soir published on the news of the arrest of the alleged Iranian spy, Ali Mansouri. Le Soir reported that the suspect had identified himself as a supporter of the MKO. The group’s PR machine uses fallacious arguments to induce Mansouri as an agent of the Iranian Qods Forces who had infiltrated the MKO.

By intentionally or unintentionally confirming its close and long-time relation with the suspect, the NCR loses its face.

The MKO’s announcement on Ali Mansouri as a person who has once been an adherent to the group was faced with revelations by the side of former members of the group who used to know Mansouri during their membership in the Cult of Rajavi. They recall him as an intelligence agent of the group against Iranian government.

Mohamamd Razaghi, former member of the MKO reveals his personal experience with Ali Mansouri while both of them were associated with the group. Ali Mansouri has been a go between for the MKO’s secret section and Mossad, Razaghi says.”Many ordinary members of the ET section [Intelligence Section of the MKO] remember him because every now and then they were tasked to do things for him,” Razaghi reveals. "It was no secret to us even in those days that he was working as an agent between MKO and Mossad and that is why he travelled personally to Israel a few times."

The NCR admits that Ali Mansouri has been an MKO sympathizer in Turkey since 1980 but Mohammad Razaghi completes NCR’s account:” In reality, Ali Mansouri was resident in Turkey between 1980 and 1998 and was in charge of gathering intelligence from inside Iran. He himself would travel to Iran every now and then. The MEK, of course, was very keen to keep him and his work secret.”[2]

Definitely, Ali Mansouri is not the only MKO-Mossad agent who has been detected in recent years. Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists have been “ joint Mossad-MEK operations,” a confidential source who is a former Israeli cabinet minister and senior IDF officer, told Richard Silverstein, journalist on January 13, 2012, the day Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan , the director of Natanz Uranium facility was murdered.[3]

According to the Associated Press, a group of suspected Israeli spies have recently gone on trial in Iran. Earlier this month Judge Dadkhoda Salari was quoted as saying that the group was led by three people who hired some 60 others to conspire against Iran’s ruling Islamic government.[4] But the most recent account of the Israeli spying network in Iran was revealed in the Washington Post. Washington Post says Turkey deliberately blew up cover of an Israeli spy ring working inside Iran in early 2012 and dealt a significant blow to Israeli Intelligence gathering.[5]

The MKO-Israeli alliance was also confirmed by other sources including the NBC News in February 2012. “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, US officials told NBC News , confirming charges leveled by Iran’s leaders.[6]

In their anti-Iranian campaign, the declaration of detaining the Iranian-Belgian man came as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was traveling to the United States to show off his wary of the likely improvement of relations between Iran and the West. The Timing was well organized. As Reuters puts, Israeli analysts questioned the timing of the affair, suggesting it was being showcased as part of efforts to discredit Tehran’s new opening to Washington.” [7]

Once Ali Mansouri turned into an expired agent, the MKO-Israeli PR machine used him as fuel to heat harder on war drums against Iranians.

While the negotiations over Iranian nuclear program between Iran and the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany in Geneva seem to spark hope for progress, the MKO and Israel have to make harder efforts to obstruct advancements.

By Mazda Parsi

Sources:

[1]https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/5448

[2]ibid

[3]Silverstein, Richard, Israeli Source: Assassination of Iranian Nuclear Scientist Joint Mossad-MEK Operation, Tikun Olam, January 13, 2012

[4]The Associated Press, Suspected Israeli spies stand trial in Iran, Oct. 12, 2013

[5] Rueters, Turkey revealed Israeli spy ring to Iran-report, Oct 17, 2013

[6] Engel, Richard & Windrem, Robert, Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran’s nuclear scientists, US officials tell NBCNews, NBC, February 9, 2012

[7] Heller, Jeffrey, Israel showcases Iranian spy case as Netanyahu visits U.S., Reuters, September 30, 2013

October 23, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Spy nabbed in Israel MKO agent

A former member of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) says a man arrested in Israel on charges of spying for Iran has been a long serving member of the anti-Iranian group.

Ali Mansouri, a dual Iranian-Belgian national, was detained on September 11 by Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, allegedly for taking notes on the security screenings at Israel’s international airport and photographing the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, according to the Israeli security agency.

The former MKO member, however, said Mansouri was a close member of the MKO for at least 30 years and has been working as a go-between for the terrorist group and Israel’s spy agency Mossad.

He added that Mansouri, who lived in Turkey between 1980 and 1998, travelled to Iran regularly posing as a businessman to gather information for Mossad and MKO leaders.

It was no secret to us even in those days that he was working as an agent between MKO and Mossad and that is why he travelled personally to Israel a few times, the source said.

The amateur nature of the photos taken by Mansouri and the timing of the arrest have raised speculations that the arrest was politically motivated.

The Israeli regime announced the arrest in late September as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left for the US to persuade US President Barack Obama that stepped-up sanctions, not diplomacy, is the way to deal with Iran over its nuclear energy program.

The visit came after a trip by an Iranian delegation to the US headed by President Hassan Rouhani, and his UN General Assembly address that many in the West hailed as a first step to a possible resolution to the nuclear standoff.

The MKO fled to Iraq in the 1980s, where it enjoyed the support of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and set up Camp Ashraf in the eastern province of Diyala, near the Iranian border.

The group also cooperated with Saddam in the massacres of Iraqi Kurds and in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community and has committed numerous terrorist acts against Iranians and Iraqis.

October 23, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Just who has been killing Iran’s nuclear scientists?

World View: The timing of the latest shot in a covert war invites questions about the role of proxies

What to make of the latest alleged assassination in Iran of a senior officer in the Revolutionary Guards just as Iran and the US move towards negotiations? Is it a last-minute attempt by Israel or the Iranian dissident group the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) to sabotage talks – or at least to show that they are still players in the decades-long struggle between the government in Tehran and its many antagonists?

The first account on an Iranian website stated that Mojtaba Ahmadi, the head of Iranian cyber warfare, had been found shot in the head outside Tehran. The Revolutionary Guards issued a statement denying that he had been assassinated, but admitted there had been a "horrific incident" which it was investigating. The killing appeared to be the latest in a string of killings, since 2007, in which five Iranians associated with the country’s nuclear programme have been murdered in professional attacks. Men on motorcycles operating on the basis of good intelligence have stuck magnetically attachable bombs to their victims’ cars.

The timing of Ahmadi’s assassination looks suspicious, coming a few days after the Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations and later spoke to President Barack Obama by telephone. Not everybody on either side is happy: the head of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammed Ali Jafari, even stated openly that, while he agreed with Rouhani’s UN speech, "he should have turned down a telephone conversation until after the American government had shown its sincerity towards Iran".

Jafari may be worried that Washington believes it has Iran on the run because of the devastating impact of economic sanctions.

An obvious motive for carrying out such assassinations is to demonstrate that the enemies of the Iranian government have a long reach and can identify and kill top specialists in modern warfare, notably but not exclusively those involved in the Iranian nuclear programme. This is in keeping with the plot of so many spy movies in which a single irreplaceable scientist is targeted for assassination by the forces of good or evil. In reality, such uniquely capable scientists, even where they exist, are extremely well-guarded and seldom drive their own cars. It is unlikely that any of those killed are the Iranian equivalent of J Robert Oppenheimer, the mastermind behind America’s successful effort to build an atomic bomb.

Who is doing the killings? A well-sourced and convincing investigation last year by NBC News in the US 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". It cites two senior Obama administration officials as confirming that the MEK is responsible for the killings but denying any US involvement.

Richard Engel and Robert Windrem of NBC quote Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran’s spiritual leader Ali Khamenei, as asserting that Israel’s secret service, Mossad, trained MEK members. He claimed that in one case it built a replica of a nuclear scientist’s house so that the killers would be familiar with it. His information largely came from the interrogation of a would-be assassin detained in Iran in 2010. Larijani said 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 categorically denies any involvement with Israel but Israeli commentators have confirmed the MEK-Israeli connection.

The MEK is a strange, highly disciplined, cult-like organisation which began as a militant opponent of the Shah, inspired by an ideology that is a mixture of Marxism and Islam. After Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, the MEK fought a ferocious war against his clerical regime, basing itself in Iraq with support from Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war.

During the Kurdish uprising in 1991, the Kurds blamed the MEK for blocking their advance against Saddam’s forces at a crucial moment. After the fall of Saddam, the MEK established shadowy connections with the US occupation authorities, often through American contractors who had previously worked for Washington and still had their security clearances, according to Iraqi officials. This allowed the US to deny it was working with a group designated as "terrorist" by its own State Department in 1997 (though that designation was lifted last year).

Nevertheless, the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh says that, even while it was listed as a foreign terror group, MEK members received training from the Joint Special Operations Command in Nevada. During the confrontation between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s nuclear programme, the MEK was attractive to US intelligence agencies because it already had committed adherents on the ground in Iran.

The US and Iran have been conducting a covert war against each other since the fall of the Shah, though its intensity goes up and down. During the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), the CIA had a station in Baghdad that fed satellite surveillance photographs of Iranian frontline positions to Saddam.

The conflict escalated again during the US occupation of Iraq (although Iran had quietly welcomed the toppling of its arch enemy in Baghdad). At the same time, Iran made every effort to ensure that it, and not America, became the predominant foreign power in post-Saddam Iraq. Pin-prick attacks by the two sides were highly visible from 2003 to about 2008, but less evident during this time was a degree of co-operation, since both sides wanted to stabilise a Shia-Kurdish government. Likewise today, neither country has an interest in seeing a reinvigorated al-Qa’ida establish itself in the Sunni heartlands of western Iraq and eastern Syria.

The problem with the US-Iranian proxy war is that neither side quite controls their own proxies to the degree the other side imagines. It is all very well working through surrogates to retain deniability, but these have their own interests and may, in addition, be incompetent, corrupt or simply crazed.

The MEK is not the only player in this murky and violent world. There are others such as PJAK – the Iranian Kurdish franchise of the Turkish Kurd PKK group – which is based in the southern Qandil mountains and has its militants inside Iran. Meanwhile, in Pakistani Baluchistan, there are militant Sunni groups eager for money and support from foreign intelligence services.

Some of these groups, whatever their origin, end up as guns for hire and have so many tactical alliances they must have difficulty remembering what they are fighting for.

How feasible is a US-Iranian détente? Prospects are a lot better than they have been for a long time given that US and Iranian interests in Syria are not so diametrically opposed as they were six months ago. The Sunni offensive that seemed to carry all before it in 2011 and 2012 has stalled, at least for now. But Iran does not want to give the impression that it is caving in under sanctions and Israel will want to retain its veto over any future US-Iran deal.

So, whatever the truth about the death of Mojtaba Ahmadi, the covert war between Iran and its enemies is a long way from ending.

By Patrick Cockburn ,

October 6, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

The MeK threatens Iranian and Iraqi officials

Reported by Fars News Agency, according to Habillian Foundation, following the September 1st attack on Camp Ashraf and its forceful evacuation on Thursday last week, the terrorist group’s spokesman has threatened Iranian and Iraqi authorities to assassinate anywhere in the world.

According to the report, in a The MeK threatens Iranian and Iraqi officials massage which was released on the MeK’s website, all those who have taken a position against this terrorist group anywhere in the world, are threatened to the fate of martyred Iranian officials such as Sayyed Assadollah Lajevardi, General Ali Sayyad Shirazi, and Ayatollah Sayyed AbdolKarim Hasheminejad.

It seems that the unprecedented audacity of Rajavi’s gang in threatening the officials from both Iran and Iraq is the result of the secure borders which the U.N and the U.S has created for them during the relocation from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty in Baghdad Suburb.

On September 1st, a group of Iraqi youth, who were outraged by the presence of the notorious terrorists inside their country, attacked Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala. As a result of the attack, 52 members of the terrorist organization, including some top MKO commanders and members of its leadership council, were killed.

September 15, 2013 0 comments

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