Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Three mass graves unearthed in former MKO camp in Iraq

Iraqi officials say they have unearthed three mass graves inside the Camp New Iraq, which once hosted members of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) in eastern Diyala Odai al-Khadran, mayor of Khalis province.

Odai al-Khadran, mayor of Khalis, a town about 75 kilometers (47 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, said on Friday that the grisly find was recently discovered in the notorious camp, Mehr News Agency reported.

Khadran highlighted that the Iraqi government plans to evacuate the third batch of MKO terrorists from Camp New Iraq, formerly known as Camp Ashraf and located about 120 kilometers (74 miles) west of the border with Iran, within the next few days.

On March 9, Iraqi officials transferred the second batch of nearly 400 members of MKO terrorist outfit to Camp Liberty [TTL] – a former US military base near Baghdad International Airport.

On February 18, the initial group of 400 MKO members was moved to Camp Liberty[Temporary Transit Location].

The relocation of the terrorist MKO group is part of an agreement reached between the United Nations and the Iraqi government in December 2011.

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

The group is also known to have cooperated with Saddam in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds. The group has carried out numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials.

Iran has repeatedly called on the Iraqi government to expel the group, but the US has attempted to block the expulsion by mounting pressure on the Iraqi government.

March 18, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Speaking Fees From MEK Come Under Government Scrutiny

The Washington Times reported Friday that the counterterrorism arm of the Treasury Department is probing speaking fees paid to Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) by supporters of the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), which the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization.

But Rendell is far from the only former government official who has publicly acknowledged accepting speaking fees from supporters of the MEK, which has been lobbying to get the group off the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The Huffington Post put together a list of 33 speakers at various MEK related meetings and conferences, though not all of them had accepted payments.

MEK supporters include a former director of the FBI, the former U.S. Attorney General, former military leaders and former high-ranking elected officials of both political parties, many of whom were paid thousands of dollars for short public speeches. The list of officials advocating for MEK to be taken off the list — which the group often helpfully provides in media packets at MEK rallies — includes Michael Mukasey, Patrick Kennedy, Rudy Giuliani, Andy Card, Howard Dean, Lee Hamilton, Bill Richardson, Tom Ridge, Wesley Clark, Fran Townsend and John Bolton.

As Glenn Greenwald points out, it may not even matter if every speaker at an event was paid since a 2010 Supreme Court decision upheld a law which banned advocacy that was “performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization.”

A State Department spokesman wouldn’t confirm that a subpoena had been issued to the office of an attorney for William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, which handles Rendell’s speaking engagements. “But the MEK is a designated terrorist group; therefore, U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to this group,” the spokesman told the Washington Times.

NBC News reported that MEK was involved in the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

TPM sat down with a former spokesman for the MEK last year, who defended the group from charges that it has encouraged a cult of personality around MEK leader Maryam Rajavi and her husband, has supported violence in the past.

Ryan J. Reilly

March 13, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Ed Rendell, Investigated In MEK Speaker Fees, Backs ‘Terrorist’ Group

WASHINGTON — Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell acknowledged this week that the Treasury Department is investigating payments he accepted to speak in support of an Iranian exile group on the U.S. government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Groups in the U.S. related to Iran’s Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) have spent millions on highly paid American speakers, including Rendell, as part of a lobbying campaign to remove the group from the foreign terrorist organizations list. It’s illegal for U.S. citizens to accept payment from foreign terrorist organizations.

Rendell, a Democrat, defended his acceptance of payments from MEK-related groups, even after the Washington Times reported that federal agents subpeonaed financial records last month from his agent, William Morris Endeavor.

Rendell said his support of the MEK was an issue of conscience, not simply a chance for him to make easy money. "I did my research extensively on this issue before I ever agreed to speak on it," he told the Washington Times. "And I am 100 percent convinced that the MEK shouldn’t be on the foreign terrorist organization list." Rendell left office in January 2011 after two terms as Pennsylvania governor. He has since joined a number of investment groups and appears regularly on MSNBC. Before he was elected governor, he was chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He couldn’t be reached Monday by The Huffington Post.

Rendell’s "extensive research" claim appears to contradict what he told the audience at his very first MEK-related speaking engagement — a July 16 conference at the Willard Hotel in Washington attended by this reporter. There, on a bipartisan panel of former administration officials, all receiving at least $20,000 for their appearances, Rendell said he had received the speaking invitation only five days before. Typically, top-tier speakers like Rendell are booked months in advance.

When he first read the offer, Rendell said he told his representative to turn it down because, as he said, "I don’t know hardly anything about this subject." Rendell said he instructed his agent to send the message, "I would have loved to come, but I don’t think I’m qualified to come."

To Rendell’s surprise, sponsors of the MEK conference weren’t concerned with his lack of knowledge. Rendell said he was "compelled and interested by the level" of the other panelists, including Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, and Anita McBride, the former chief of staff to Laura Bush. This, Rendell said, was why "I decided to come down" to Washington.

In the four days between Rendell’s acceptance of the engagement and his appearance, he told the audience he had received information from at least four sources. "Firstly, from your representatives over the phone," he said. "Secondly, from the materials you sent me. Thirdly from a discussion [Howard Dean and I] had with some of your representatives earlier this morning. And fourthly, from listening to these panelists."

Since July, Rendell has received payment for at least six pro-MEK speeches in the U.S. and Europe — money he said comes from "citizens, both American citizens here and Iranian expats in Europe who believe in the cause.”

The MEK was founded in Iran in 1963, loosely based on Marxist principles. The group carried out bombings in Iran in the 1970s and 1980s, killing some Americans and prompting its inclusion on the U.S. foreign terrorist organizations list when it was first released in 1997.

Asked recently about the origins of the large payments the pro-MEK groups make for high-ranking former officials including himself, Rendell told the Washington Times he doesn’t actually know where the money originates, except that "there’s a very significant group of American citizens" who support the MEK. "How they pledge their money and send it in and aggregate it to pay us, I don’t know,” he told the newspaper.

Christina Wilkie

March 13, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Ex-member: MKO helps Israeli agents in covert war with Iran

A former top commander of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) says the organization has close ties with Israeli operatives, helping them in their covert operations against Iran.
Ex-member: MKO helps Israeli agents in covert war with Iran
In a telephone interview with Israel’s Maariv radio on March 5, Massoud Khodabandeh noted that it was no surprise to hear about the role of the MKO terrorists in assassinating Iran’s nuclear scientists.

Some US officials told the NBC network last week that the MKO terrorists have been involved in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists in the past two years.

Since January 2010, a total of six Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated by operatives of Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, which is using the MKO terrorists for the attacks.

“I was not surprised by the recent revelations as I am fully aware of Israel’s relations with the MKO.” Khodabandeh added.

He said the MKO has extensive relations with Israel and its operatives in Europe work with Israeli agents.

According to the ex-MKO official, most members of the organization are women. Their leader Maryam Rajavi, also a woman, is the wife of top MKO member Massoud Rajavi who ‘disappeared’ 10 years ago and there is no information available on his current whereabouts.

The organization has strong financial resources and two major bases; one in the suburbs of Paris and the other Camp Ashraf in Iraq. The MKO elements were recently evacuated from Ashraf to Liberty Camp in Iraq.

Khodabandeh said the organization has 5,000 members, barred from any contact with the outside world, who totally obey the Rajavis.

Ann Singleton, the wife of Khodabandeh and a former MKO member, also noted that the MKO has never been independent and has always relied on foreign support.

She added that it would be quite logical to imagine that the organization has been involved in the assassination of Iranian scientist.

Dr. Trita Parsi, a prominent MKO critic, also noted that the MKO is not a simple organization, but a cult which suppresses even its own members.

The MKO is termed as a terrorist organization under the US law, and has been described by the US State Department officials as a repressive cult.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it enjoyed the support of Iraq’s executed dictator, Saddam Hussein.

The MKO is also known to have cooperated with Saddam in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds. The group has carried out numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials.

March 7, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MKO criminals should stand trial

Maryam Rajavi should be expelled by France, along with her husband, and sent back to Tehran to stand trial along with the other Mujahedin-e Khalq expatriates currently in Iraq, a political analyst tells Habilian Foundation (families of Iranian terror victims). Mark Dankof, former US Senate candidate and a San Antonio-based political commentator

Habilian has interviewed Mark Dankof, former US Senate candidate and a San Antonio-based political commentator, about the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK, also MKO and PMOI) and the latest developments surrounding the terrorist group. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Habilian: Mr. Dankof, there have been allegations recently that the MEK was involved in the recent bomb blasts in Thailand. What do you think of these allegations? If you place any validity in them, for what purposes would the MEK have been involved?

Mark Dankof: I am aware of the allegations made by Syed Sulaiman Husaini, the Shia leader of Thailand, that the MEK was directly involved, and that all four of the suspects were MEK operatives. His allegations were published in the Bangkok Post. Mr. Husaini’s allegations make perfect sense to me. In the first place, the Iranian government is not reckless enough to sanction such an absolutely absurd undertaking, any more than the so-called Saudi Ambassador assassination plot in the United States Iran was linked to by the American media.

I emphasized this in my last conversation with you fine folks and with Press TV. Tehran would have everything to lose by such actions, in essence handing the Zionists the public casus belli they seek in conjunction with the Zionist-affiliated War Party in the United States. Everything about this recent incident in Bangkok points to a False Flag Operation conducted by the Mossad and the MEK for purposes of discrediting Iran, facilitating their propaganda campaign about Iran’s posited danger to the international community, and diverting attention from their own obvious acts of terror within Iranian borders in recent years, including the assassinations of the 5 Iranian nuclear scientists.

NBC News has all but confirmed MEK/Mossad involvement in these killings, quoting an “unnamed senior U.S. official” as confirming a direct Israeli/MEK involvement not only in these 5 murders, but in other acts of terror in Iranian Azerbaijan, Khuzestan, Balochistan, and Khorasan provinces.

Here is the bottom line. The United States and Israel are already at war with Iran, as Ron Paul has correctly observed. The recent articles by Pat Buchanan, Pepe Escobar, and Alex Newman of the New American are among those which chronicle the real reasons for this bellicose policy of unmitigated aggression. These reasons have nothing to do with the Zionist propaganda poured into American homes every evening by Corporate Media. The Zionist doctrine of Eretz Yisrael, Iran’s forced entrance into a Jewish dominated international central banking system at gunpoint, and the control of Iranian oil, natural gas, and pipeline routes by Western multinational energy consortiums is the real agenda. And one of history’s most bitter ironies and paradoxes is that the Marxist-Leninist MEK is a tool in the achievement of these evil objectives. The real point of intersection in all of this may well be the truism that Marxism, Zionism, and Multinational Corporate Capitalism have an identical disregard for God and a complete lack of respect for the sanctity of human life—especially Iranian human life.

Habilian: The hue and cry of the MKO is that the conditions at Camp Liberty in Iraq are dire and inhumane, and that Iraqi forces are a threat to the wellbeing of the MEK members at the new camp, even though the United Nations has confirmed that Liberty meets international standards. What do you think of all of this? Is the MEK going to resist further attempts at relocation? What will Iraq’s reaction to continued resistance be?

Mark Dankof: The propaganda campaign being waged by the MKO over their status in Iraq is being aided and abetted by Israel’s Lobby in the United States, as is made clear by reading Ron Kampeas’ piece for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Jerusalem Post entitled, “Pro-Israel Voices Want MKO off Terrorist List.” I have some advice for both Iraq and Iran. I believe all 3,400 MKO members should be returned to Tehran. Those determined to have been directly involved in crimes should face a public tribunal for their massively expansive list of violent acts undertaken in that country since 1965. The witnesses in the tribunal would include a rather impressive list of Westerners victimized by the MEK, including Constance Wilson Andresen, the ex-wife of Professor Raymond Tanter of Georgetown University who heads up the MEK’s chief front organization in the United States, the Iran Policy Committee.

The world needs to hear Mrs. Tanter’s story, the stories of the American family members whose loved ones were assassinated by the MEK during the days of Pahlavi Iran, the role of the MEK in killing dozens of members of the IRI government in Iran in the early 1980s by bomb blasts, the utilization of the MEK by Saddam Hussein against Iran during the Iran-Iraq War from 1980-1988, the role of the MEK in carrying out the murder of Kurds at Mr. Hussein’s directive, and the particulars of the murders of 17,000 Iranians by this Marxist-Leninist cult.

The horrific criminal record of this organization, when exposed by open public tribunal, will simply underscore the moral bankruptcy of the Israeli government presently in league with these people, and the connivance of Israel’s agents in the United States government with these murderers.

Habilian: What do you think of barring Miryam Rajavi [co-leader of the MEK with husband Masoud Rajavi] from entrance into the UK?

Mark Dankof: She should be barred. She should also be expelled by France, along with her husband, and sent back to Tehran to stand trial along with the other MEK expatriates currently in Iraq. Ed Blanche’s piece in June of 2009 for The Middle East on the MEK discusses the Rajavis. It should be read by everyone in the United States currently feasting on Zionist propaganda on the subject, along with the RAND Corporation dossier on this organization and its sordid history.

Habilian: Any final thoughts today?

Mark Dankof: The sickening spectacle of the national gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington this coming week is, nonetheless, a pivotal event in world history, but for tragic and demonic purposes. Benjamin Netanyahu is coming here in an American Presidential Election Year to extort support from a groveling American Chief Executive of the United States, his wannabe opponents in the Republican Presidential Primaries, and key Congressional members of both major parties on Capitol Hill, also known as Zionist Occupied Territory. What happens at this gathering, and in the private meeting of Netanyahu with Obama and his Republican neo-conservative counterparts, may well determine the date when Israel’s overt aerial military operation against Iran begins. I believe it will happen before the American election. When it does, Philip Giraldi’s essay, “What World War III May Look Like,” underscores the horror and tragedy of the intended—and unintended—consequences that will undoubtedly follow.

I’d like to express one more thought tonight. I have always loved Iran since I first traveled there in 1974. It was my intention to return there for a visit this year, an intention unfortunately preempted by events beyond the control of any of us. I’d like any Iranian who reads my remarks, either in English, or in a Farsi translation, to know from the bottom of my heart that I am truly and sincerely sorry for the direction the relationship between our countries has taken in recent years because of the poison disseminated by the Zionist beast, and that I and many similarly powerless Americans are sickened and outraged by what is likely to transpire in the next year. I’ll never forget Iran and the kindness of its people as I encountered them personally many years ago as a young person. My memories remain bright. They will never die. The Old American Republic already has.

March 4, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

12 MKO leaders on Interpol’s wanted list

Interpol has issued arrest warrants for 12 leaders of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization, the Habilian Association website reported on Tuesday.

The website, quoting an informed unidentified Iraqi official, said that the arrest warrants have been issued for the members due to the illegal activities that they have carried out, including abduction.

According to the official, the main impediment to the implementation of the arrest warrants is the fact that police forces are not allowed to enter Camp New Iraq, which was formerly known as Camp Ashraf, where most of the MKO members are based.

However, he said that Iraq reserves the right to pursue the cases of the MKO members in other countries when they are transferred out of Iraq.

The Iraqi government plans to transfer all MKO members out of the country and has temporality relocated them to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near Baghdad International Airport.

February 29, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Simple Answer to Bangkok Blasts: MKO

The Valentine’s Day bomb blast in Bangkok came approximately a month after Tehran bombing where the Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahamdi Roshan was assassinated after a magnetic bomb was slapped to his car by motorcycle riders who were MKO-Israeli agents according to various reports. The most prominent report is that of MSNBC that quotes from US officials who confirm that Israeli Mossad and the Mujahedin khalq Organization have been working together on killing Iranian scientists.[1]

MSNBC revealed that US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement. Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined comment. And, the MKO called the report “absolutely false”.[2]

The sophistication of the attacks shows that an experienced intelligence service was involved, according to experts.[3]
The possibility of the MKO involvement in the attack “seems logical” in the “psychological warfare” conducted against Iran. ”it ‘s been done before” Dr. Uzi Rabi, director of the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University told NBC.[4]

The MKO’s spying network and terrorist operations against Iran is notoriously known to the world. Maybe that’s why Bangkok Post states, ”at various levels, there are grounds which might support the theory of an Independent MEK operation in Bangkok, New Delhi and Tiblisi.

“Strategically, the organization has ample motive. The successful assassination of Israeli diplomats would at the least serve to further isolate the Iranian government at a critical juncture. At most, it might provide the impetus to push Israel into an attack on Iran that would destabilize or even topple the regime – a result MeK has no chance of achieving itself.”[5]
Muhammad Sahimi and Richard Silverstein of the Christian Science Monitor believe that it may be no accident that the attacks occurred only days after the publication of MSNBC report on Mossad – MKO role in Iran assassinations.[6]

It was no surprise that after the February blasts Israel accused Iran and eventually Iran denied the accusation. “Though the plot in Thailand appears utterly amateurish and there are questions as to why Iran might choose India – one of the most importers of its oil- to attack the Israeli diplomats, the denial might be self-serving”, Sahimi and Silverstein write. [7] However, “the willingness of the Islamic Republic to provide proactive assistance in the investigations [about Bangkok blasts] will also serve as an important reflection of its interest in rebutting Israeli’s accusations,” according to Bangkok Post. [8]

It doesn’t seem too difficult to figure out who really commit the terrorist operations.”Operationally ,the hand of the MEK or allied opposition elements also provides an explanation for the otherwise puzzling blunders displayed in Mid February,” reads Bangkok post.”It can be safely assumed that a small number of Iranian opposition elements has been recruited, trained and deployed by Israeli and/or US intelligence services in the covert war against Iran’s nuclear program.”[9]

Referring to “Which Path to Persia” 2009 report of Brookings’ Institution, Feroze Mithiborwala put it in countercurrents.org that the US and Israel are looking for ways to goad Iran into provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. [10] He finds “the riddle of Bangkok”, ”a very simple matter to comprehend” explaining that ”The Mujahedin Khalq (MKO/MEK) ,is a terrorist organization comprising of disgruntled Iranians who are now working for the CIA and the Mossad. The MKO is openly supported by the US – Israel as their strategic allies and they are the ones who are responsible for the assassinations of the Iranian nuclear scientists and terror attacks within Iran.”[11]

Yeah, for the United States and Israel the MKO is categorized in “Good Terrorists” group because it is engaged in any act of violence against people-whether civilians or military – to destabilize their long time common foe, Islamic Republic of Iran.

By Mazda Parsi

References:
[1]Engel, Richard& Windrem, Robert, Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran’s nuclear scientists, US officials tell NBC News, MSNBS, February 9, 2012
[2]ibid
[3]ibid
[4]ibid
[5]Bangkok Post, No easy answer to who lit fuse in bomb attacks, February 26, 2012
[6] Sahimi, Mohammad & Silverstein, Richard, Israeli Iran attack? What goes around comes around, Christian Science Monitor, February 21, 2012
[7]ibid
[8] Bangkok Post, No easy answer to who lit fuse in bomb attacks, February 26, 2012
[9]ibid
[10]Mithiborwala, Feroze, Exposing the Israeli-Mossad False Flag Terror Attacks in New Delhi, Tibilisi and Bangkok, countercurrents.org, February 16,2012
[11]ibid

February 29, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MEK is not democrats or freedom fighters

These are not democrats or freedom fighters. The more you get to know them the more they seem closer to some kind of odd, almost Manson-like cult. Maryam Rajavi is their leader and she Mujahedin Khalq is not democrats or freedom fighters (her husband yielded to her years ago since a woman leader impresses Westerners) will be President of Iran when they somehow sweep away the clerical regime.

Trita Parsi (an MEI adjunct scholar by the way) has a good post up at The Huffington Post about the People’s Mojahedin of Iran/Mohahedin-e-Khalq (PMOI or MEK) efforts to get themselves off the US terrorism supporters list. His lead says it all succinctly:

In the 10 years that I have lived in Washington, I have never seen lobbyists for al-Qaeda parade through the halls of Congress. I have not seen any events on Capitol Hill organized by Hamas. And I have not seen any American politicians take campaign contributions from the Islamic Jihad.
But the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an organization with the blood of Americans and Iranians alike on its hands, freely does all of these things, despite being a designated foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

I’ve been here a lot longer than ten years, but I share his view. The MEK have been lobbying hard in Washington since the 80s at least, despite being on the terrorist list for killing American diplomats and military personnel in the days of the Shah. They’re slick, they’re well funded (how?) and they seem able to persuade Congressmen who would never respond to an Arab group in the same way. Yet besides their track record of killing US personnel in the Shah’s day, they are based in Iraq, fought on the side of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, maintain to this day a cult like "Camp Ashraf" in Iraq that the Iraqi government is pressuring to leave and threatening to deport to Iran, have a true cult of personality about their leadership, and are uniformly hated by every Iranian I know who isn’t one of them, from Pahlavi restorationists to leftists to liberal democrats to people who support the current system. After all, they fought for Saddam against Iranians, and are traitors in the eyes even of those who hate the clerical regime.

Their PR skills are good. In my journalism days they used to drop by regularly to try to cultivate me, and while I listened politely, I had too many US military friends who’d served in pre-revolutionary Iran and knew them as their primary nemesis. (The MEK claim that was because their current leadership was in jail under the Shah, and all the bad stuff was done by somebody else.)

True story: I’ve only been in Iraq once, for about five days in 1989 in between the Iran-Iraq war and the Kuwait war. I was getting in an elevator in the Sheraton Hotel when a smallish man in an impeccable suit stepped in and asked if I was an American. My first thought was, gosh, he looks and carries himself just like the MEK guys in DC. Guess what? That’s exactly who he was. With exactly the same missionary spiel.

These are not democrats or freedom fighters. The more you get to know them the more they seem closer to some kind of odd, almost Manson-like cult. Maryam Rajavi is their leader and she (her husband yielded to her years ago since a woman leader impresses Westerners) will be President of Iran when they somehow sweep away the clerical regime. Not through election, through acclamation. She’s the Evita Peron of Iran, or at least a wannabe.

I have no brief for the Iranian regime, but these guys worry me, especially for their strange, Svengali-like power over members of Congress from both sides of the aisle. I applaud Trita’s warning here. Let the Buyer Beware.

by Michael Collins Dunn – mideasti.blogspot

February 25, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Bangkok bomb suspects were MKO members

Four Iranians suspected of involvement in a botched bomb plot targeting Israeli diplomats in Bangkok were members of an exiled Iranian opposition group which wanted the incident to reflect badly on Teheran, Syedsulaiman Husaini, Shia leader of Thailand, said on Sunday. Bangkok bomb suspects were members of Mojahedin Khalq

He claimed the four belonged to the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organisation (also known as MEK, MKO and the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran, or PMOI) which aims to overthrow the current Iranian government.

The MEK has been on the US Department of State’s list of foreign terrorist organisations since 1997.

Thai authorities and security agencies were not familiar with the group, said Mr Syedsulaima, who is also director of the Islamic studies centre at Al Mahdi Institute and former president of the Iran University Alumni Association.

The Islamic scholar said the bomb incident was unlikely to be the work of the Iranian government as speculated because Bangkok and Teheran have good bilateral relations.

A secret report by Iran’s security agency also indicated that the Iran nationals linked with Bangkok’s latest bomb plot were members of the MEK, reports said.

Formed in the 1960s, the organisation participated in Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution that replaced the country’s pro-Western ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, with a Shi’ite Islamist regime led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. The MEK, whose ideology mixes Marxism and Islam, was expelled from Iran two years later after trying to stage an armed uprising against Khomeini.

Bangkok Post,

February 21, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Officials must cut ties with confirmed terror group MEK

Washington, DC – In light of confirmation by U.S. officials that the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) Officials must cut ties with confirmed terror group MEK continues to engage in terrorism, despite the groups claim to have renounced violence, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) calls on all former officials who have taken part in the MEK’s lobbying and PR efforts to immediately cut ties with the organization, donate any money they have received to charity, and work with law enforcement to ensure this U.S.-designated terror group is dismantled.

“The MEK remains a terrorist organization but continues to operate within the United States and spend millions of dollars to advance their radical agenda,” said NIAC President Trita Parsi. “The former officials who have been duped by the MEK should see this as a wake up call and take immediate action to help protect Americans from this terror.”

The MEK is designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization but has claimed to have abandoned violence and has enlisted prominent officials to pressure the Obama Administration to remove it from the terror list. Among the officials are former Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former Governor Howard Dean, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Member of Congress Patrick Kennedy, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and former Ambassador to the UN John Bolton.

NBC News reported Thursday that senior U.S. government officials have confirmed that the MEK is still committing acts of terrorism by assassinating Iranian scientists. NBC also disclosed for the first time that the MEK worked with the terrorist Ramzi Yousef a year after he masterminded the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York City to bomb an Iranian shrine, killing at least 26 people, mostly women and children.

Many of the officials who have advocated in support of the MEK in the U.S. and abroad have acknowledged being paid, potentially in violation of U.S. anti-terror statutes. There is little clarity as to the origination of funding for the MEK’s efforts.
To learn more, visit www.MEKterror.org.

February 14, 2012 0 comments

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