{"id":10464,"date":"2020-02-15T11:34:56","date_gmt":"2020-02-15T08:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=10464"},"modified":"2021-01-21T19:28:53","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T15:58:53","slug":"brian-hook-met-mek-before-after-the-assassination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/10464","title":{"rendered":"Brian Hook met MEK before, after the assassination"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States\u2019 point man on Iran met with a representative of the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group both before and after Washington\u2019s assassination of senior Iranian commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, a report says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Brian Hook, the US\u2019s special representative for Iran and senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, held the meetings with Robert G. Joseph, who represents the so-called National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in September 2019 and on January 31, American news and opinion website The Daily Beast reported on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

On its website, the NCRI calls itself the MKO\u2019s \u201cumbrella coalition,\u201d but many consider the two to be synonymous.<\/p>\n

Joseph referred to the meetings in a semi-annual report he filed with the US Justice Department earlier this week in line with the US\u2019s Foreign Agent Registration Act.<\/p>\n\n

The US assassinated General Soleimani, the former commander of the Quds Force of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and a number of others in a set of drone strikes targeting Baghdad\u2019s civilian airport on January 3.<\/p>\n

The director of public relations of pro-government Hashd al-Sha\u2019abi forces has been killed after three Katyusha rockets fell on Baghdad International Airport.<\/p>\n

General Soleimani, who had earned reputation as the region\u2019s most popular anti-terror military figure, was on an official visit to the Iraqi capital when the attack took place.<\/p>\n

Joseph, a former senior State Department official under President George W. Bush, advises the NCRI at $15,000 a month. Relentlessly an Iran hawk, Joseph told a meeting of the group last March that he hoped that the Iranian government would soon fall.<\/p>\n

The MKO has conducted a litany of assassinations and bombings against Iranian officials and civilians since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It notoriously sided with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during Iraq\u2019s Western-backed war of 1980-88 against the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist assaults since the Revolution\u2019s victory, about 12,000 have fallen victim to the MKO\u2019s acts of terror.<\/p>\n

The terrorist outfit was on the US\u2019s list of terrorist organizations until 2012.<\/p>\n

Many other Western states have crossed its name out on their blacklists, too. The NCRI has its headquarters in Paris, which also serves as the venue for the MKO\u2019s annual conferences.<\/p>\n

The group throws lavish conferences every year in the French capital, with certain American, Western, and Saudi Arabian officials in attendance as guests of honor. These include former US national security advisor John Bolton, US President Donald Trump\u2019s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, and former Saudi Arabian spy chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal.<\/p>\n

The US-backed Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) is notorious for its numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials.<\/p>\n

Also in January, Giuliani told The Daily Beast that General Soleimani had been \u201cdirectly responsible for killing some of my MEK (MKO) people,\u201d adding, \u201cWe don\u2019t like him very much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evidence once showed that Bolton had received a $40,000 \u201cspeaking fee\u201d to address an annual MKO gathering.<\/p>\n

Today the world’s catching on to @AmbJohnBolton\u2019s chronic warmongering. But Iranians didn\u2019t need to read a 10,000 word @NewYorker profile to be convinced: we’ve seen him shill for a cult terror group, and\u2014along with his #B_Team accomplices\u2014target Iranians with #EconomicTerrorism. pic.twitter.com\/8n0UHyXOyq
\n\u2014 Javad Zarif (@JZarif) April 30, 2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last June, the MKO informed its members through an internal communiqu\u00e9 that it would \u201cwelcome\u201d the assassination of General Soleimani and Iran\u2019s Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raeisi.<\/p>\n

A US and Saudi Arabia-backed anti-Iran terrorist group has announced a plan to assassinate a senior Iranian commander and the country\u2019s new Judiciary chief.<\/p>\n

The NCRI hailed General Soleimani\u2019s assassination in a blog post following the airstrikes.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the US airstrikes, Pompeo circulated a memo to all American embassies barring \u201cdirect US government engagement with\u201d MKO\u2019s representatives, citing its controversial history, including alleged role in the assassination of three US army officers and three civilian contractors, The Daily Beast said.<\/p>\n

He, however, walked back from the warning later, leaving the door open to such engagement. \u201cPosts should welcome opportunities to meet with and learn from members of the Iranian diaspora community,\u201d he advised American diplomats in a cable overriding the memo.<\/p>\n

Pompeo himself spoke at an event that included MKO representatives last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States\u2019 point man on Iran met with a representative of the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group both before and after Washington\u2019s assassination of senior Iranian commander Lieutenant…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[85,178],"module":[67],"ctype":[17],"blog":[25],"class_list":["post-10464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mujahedin-khalq-proxy-force","tag-mujahedin-khalq-terrorism","tag-pmoi-iran-people","module-news","ctype-story","blog-press-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10464"},{"taxonomy":"module","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/module?post=10464"},{"taxonomy":"ctype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctype?post=10464"},{"taxonomy":"blog","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog?post=10464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}