BBC

MKO Provides Intelligence for Other Terrorists

"Iraqi security services’ report indicate that the group of Mojahedin-e khalq gathers intelligence on Iraqi officials and authorities and gives this intelligence to other terrorist groups in the country," said Haydar Ebadi, Iraqi MP from the list of Iraq’s Unified List.

This comment follows the statements of Iraqi PM, accusing the Iraqi-based Iranian opposition group of interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq.

In a press conference, Nuri al-Maliki announced that the MKO, which acts against Islamic Republic of Iran, is clearly and widely interfering in Iraq’s social and political affairs.

Iraqi prime minister emphasized that MKO is a terrorist group and its presence in Iraq contradicts Iraqi constitution.

BBC Arabic – 2006/07/29

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/middle_east_news/newsid_5198000/5198568.stm

August 1, 2006 0 comment

Germany

Concerns Over MKO’s Terrorist Activities

A senior German official said that Iranian leaders have meanwhile voiced concern that there might be plots to attack their national football side during the World Cup in Germany.

Bavaria’s interior minister Günter Beckstein said that Germany’s Interior minister has been informed of Iranian concerns.

Mr. Beckstein who was talking to a German newspaper didn’t tell who maybe beyond attacks but reports quote him saying that Iranian opposition groups including MKO, which is on EU’s terror list, maybe plotting for terrorist attacks.

Iran’s concerns are expressed at a time when the ministers of 16 states of Germany are going to hold a meeting on coordination of security measures.

Steinbeck says the world cup matches could be target for terrorist attacks because of its popularity.

BBC – 2006/05/06

May 10, 2006 0 comment

Former members of the MEK

Mohsen Abbaslou – BBC Interview about Camp Ashraf

One of the MKO members has recently escaped the group’s camp in Iraq. We asked him why he escaped.

Abbaslou: I had some friends in the camp. I had no future in the American camp. It was an ambiguous future, therefore I and four of my friends could escape the camp July 6, 2005.

I personally thank the US forces, but the reality is that the cult has remained in Iraq due to the problems of the coalition forces.

BBC: you mean MKO officials tortured MKO members in coalition camps?

Abbaslou: well, US forces had surrounded Camp Ashraf and had no control over its internal affairs and this had allowed the MKO to apply their cult-like ideologies. I myself was beaten by the MKO officials, they injected sterilizers into my body, I was virtually executed, they hanged me, forced me into the septic tank, they forced me to admit to what I had not done. There are others like me, such as Amir Abbas Mashour (known as Mahmoud Moshtaghi). They had forced him to divorce his wife. He loved his wife and so, he set himself on fire. Other friends were on hunger strike for a long time, they had sewed their lips only because of the situation”.

Well, this is the violation of human rights”.

BBC: this was our conversation with Mohsen Abbaslou, former member of the MKO. We couldn’t reach MKO officials to have their comments.

BBC Radio, March 10, 2006

March 16, 2006 0 comment

Former members of the MEK

Khodabandeh Interview with BBC Radio

In a letter to British Interior Minister Mr. Charles Clarke, Massoud Khodabandeh who runs Iran-Interlink group in Britain asked for investigation into the activities of the National Council of Resistance in the UK and preventing what he called “the MKO’s assault on reporters”. Iran-Interlink was formed three years ago with the purpose of helping those who separate from the MKO. Last week in a press conference in London, this group displayed films and documents showing the MKO’s cooperation with the former regime of Saddam Hussein. However, a number of MKO supporters protested the event. In an interview with Mr. Khodabandeh, I asked him why he had sent a letter to the British Interior Minister:

Khodabandeh: On November 10, we held a press conference in London titled “Saddam’s Relations with International Terrorism” and a number of media took part in the event. Unfortunately, some MKO members came to attack the participants, but they failed as the police came to the scene. A reporter, however, leaving the place was assaulted by MKO members. I expected the NCRI to release a statement, apologizing for what they had done, but instead they started threatening their opponents, particularly reporters and journalists. Therefore, as a British citizen, I wrote to Mr. Clarke; the previous letter, signed by 70 to 80 people asking for investigation, was sent to him on September 26. In this letter, I asked for a full investigation on the status of the MKO and NCRI’s office and their activities in London. In addition, I requested for a guarantee against possible similar acts by this group in future. As the organizer of this conference, and on behalf of Iran-Interlink and others, I apologize for the behavior of Rajavi’s agents towards the participants, particularly the correspondents of the BBC and VOA.

– Those who, according to you, disrupted the order of conference claim that the meeting was held by the cooperation of Islamic Republic’s intelligence forces. What’s your response to these accusations?

Khodabandeh: I wrote this letter as a British citizen, but we are now speaking in Farsi as Iranians. Calling 700-800 people abroad the “agents of regime” and claiming that a VOA correspondent, a BBC reporter, Human Rights organizations and opposition figures are all agents of the Iranian regime is not helpful at all. This is only exaggerating a system inside Iran. I don’t think that even CIA has such power. Even if you are right, and I’m not the agent, but the head of the regime’s Intelligence Ministry, why do you attack VOA’s correspondent? You have assaulted a woman. This is not the way Iranians behave. They never attack a lonely woman in a corner of a building. She had only come to listen. She said nothing; she had only come to watch the films and no one knew if she was going to write a report or not!

BBC Radio

December 3, 2005 0 comment

UK home secretary to protect journalists from MKO

UK home secretary "urged" to protect journalists from Iranian "terrorist group"

Text of report in English by Iranian news agency IRNA website

London, 16 November: Home Secretary Charles Clarke is being urged to provide adequate protection in the UK to journalists threatened by the Iraq-based Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorist group [MKO – Iranian opposition group] for reporting about their activities.

"Please take this threat seriously before it is too late," Clarke was told in a letter sent Tuesday [15 November] by Mas’ud Khodabandeh [an Iranian national], who heads British-based Iran Interlink, which provides humanitarian support and family contacts for members wishing to leave the MKO.

His appeal came after a representative of Voice of America was intimidated after attending a conference organized by Interlink last week calling for MKO leader Mas’ud Rajavi to be tried along with former Iraqi president Saddam Husayn.

"The MKO’s agents in the UK, who have been working overtly for Saddam Husayn’s services in Britain for the last two decades, are not unknown to your law enforcement agencies throughout the country," Khodabandeh told the home secretary.

Although the MKO is proscribed in the UK as a terrorist group, it operates under its so-called front group, the National Council of Resistance, frequently organizing propaganda meetings in the UK parliament.

Interlink wrote to Clarke back in September, with a copy to other EU interior ministers, warning that ‘MKO assassination teams were activated in Europe."

"Those forces have the same training as Saddam Husayn’s Republican Guards and therefore have the same capability as the Iraq leader’s Fedayeen," Khodabandeh said.

Chairing last week’s conference in London, British member of the European Parliament, Baroness Nicholson, also warned "for the sake of our citizens and for global safety" that greater attention be paid to the MKO.

Khodabandeh said that the terrorist group, which is under US protection in Iraq, had regrouped in Europe and had been reassigned to target critics.

"I would again ask for your intervention to instigate a meaningful investigation into the activities of the known agents," he told the British home secretary.

Source: IRNA website, Tehran, in English 0550 gmt 16 Nov 05

BBC Monitoring Media – 16 November 2005

November 21, 2005 0 comment

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Call for the expulsion of a controversial Iranian rebel group

Newspapers in the Middle East are encouraged by the Iraqi constitution referendum, although they see a long road ahead until stability is achieved.

In Iraq itself, where many papers have failed to publish over the past few days because of an election holiday, one daily is optimistic, while another links the vote to a call for the expulsion of a controversial Iranian rebel group.

Commentary in Iraq’s independent Al-Shahid

Now that Iraqis have voted on their new constitution which has put an end to the presence of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation in Iraq, we believe that the Iraqi government is now required to take action and implement the constitutional article concerning this terrorist organisation. It should be brave, expel it from Iraq, given the danger it poses and especially the horrible crimes it committed. The Mojahedin-e Khalq has no place in the new Iraq.

October 24, 2005 0 comment

Ann Singleton Former members of the MEK

BBC’s Interview with Anne Singleton

Anne Singleton became involved with the Iranian Mojahedin when she was at University in the late 1970s. Initially offering practical and political support she eventually became so immersed in the group she went to a military training camp in Iraq for 3 months. Eventually she became disillusioned and struggled to leave. So how did a girl from Sheffield get involved in a radical group from Iran? Anne talks to Jenni about her experiences.

Jenni Murray: When we hear about young people who’ve become involved in terrorism we often wonder how did they get drawn into it and what makes them take part in violent acts that most people would find utterly repulsive. Well, Anne Singleton from Leeds became involved with the group which has been declared a terrorist organization in recent years, the Iranian Mujahideen. She was at University in Manchester in the late 1970s, then spent a time in their military training camp in Iraq and eventually struggled to leave. She now helps others who want to get away. I spoke to her earlier this morning, how did she get involved in the first place?

Anne Singleton: I was very much interested in changing the world. I was a very idealistic young person and very passionate about justice and injustice in the world and it happened that I came across this group who were very very serious about what they were doing and they held a lot of meetings and they held demonstrations and I went along and recruited.

Murray: So, how did it intensify? I mean you started on the periphery of it but then really became involved in it?

Singleton: They would use techniques such as being very very friendly towards you, making you feel that you perhaps are understanding a little bit more than other people, a bit of flattery and a bit of guilt and they will say well how can you sit around doing nothing when all these people are suffering. And then they will little by little take things from you, such as your money, they start with that, can you make a contribution? Would you mind helping out? We are desperately in short of funds can you please help us out and I would because I was working and I could give them sums of money which made me feel good about helping. I would give them quite large amounts of money. Then, it didn’t stop there and they would say well it’s ok but can you just please stay some time off working and come to a demonstration because we really really need the support, we really need the help. So I would give up my time and it gradually escalated from there.

Murray: And how were your family and friends involved this?

Singleton: I tried to get my friends involved because I thought it was such a good cause and I felt very strongly about it. They were practically a bit more cynical than I was…. involved emotionally. So, yes we were aware they didn’t try to stop me because I don’t think they felt there’s any problem with it.

Murray: How aware were you of things like attacks on US civilians in Tehran and that they’d supported the take over of the American embassy in 1979?

Singleton: I think those of things which I became aware of in passing, and I read the literature from the time before the revolution but of course the history of the organization had changed quite a lot in 20 years it’d been operating.

Murray: Why did you go to military training in Iraq?

Singleton: Because I underwent a process of psychological manipulation which didn’t allow me to think properly and really numbed my critical faculties to the point where I would have followed them to the ends of the earth if they’d asked me to.

Murray: You were young when you started. Were you naïve getting involved with them?

Singleton: Well these recruitment methods work on young people, will work on old people, will work on rich people poor people. Yes, it’s a simple answer. I don’t think you can say that because somebody is young they’re more vulnerable. I actually became fulltime in that organization when I was thirty. And I gave up my job and my home and my car and I get everything up and gave it to them when I was thirty. The reason I did that is because of the psychological techniques which they used on me and it wouldn’t have mattered of what age I was, they work on anybody at any stage.

Murray: So, what were you doing in military training?

Singleton: The military training, it was kind of inevitability I went to Iraq because everybody went. It was just a standard for that organization, for the Mujahideen-e Khalq that they take people to Iraq and give them basic military training; marching, information, you learn basic skills, handling a gun, crawling under the barbwire, assault courses, it’s really just quite basic military training.

Murray: would you’ve taken part in a violent attack if they asked you to?

Singleton: You know this is the point where I very recently decided I had to talk more about my experience because when I heard about the London bombings and I saw these three young men who were brought up in the same areas that I was and I thought about them going off , I can’t remember I heard they’d gone but I thought they must have gone off to training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan, and it suddenly hit me that that was me that was exactly what I did, what was the difference? What on earth was the difference between them and me? I had gone to Iraq. To a terrorist training camp and I hadn’t thought about it. I had not given it one thought about where that might have led at the end of the day. At that point I started to question myself this was just a few months ago, and I thought well surely surely surely I would not have ever ever got involved in violence because I personally deeply don’t believe in that, you know, I catch flies and put them out of the window rather than kill them. But being very honest with myself, I realized that I would have gone along with it because I would have not had the will to resist at that point I was so completely under their influence that I would have just gone along. If they said that well OK we’re going to start an armed operation into Iran I would have probably felt scared and doubtful but I’m sure I would have found myself swept along with it, I’m sure I would.

Murray: How difficult was it for you to actually …. yourself?

Singleton: Very very difficult, very difficult. Although I was failing in the organization the sense that I just could not bring myself to conform fully and I was struggling I was under so much stress I stopped eating for a long time and then because of this kind of inability to conform them, from Iraq, they sent me back to Paris and then from Paris they sent me back to England. And I think it was in England where because it was my homeland that I had possibility to make little escape routes. Fortunately my mother had never lost contact with me. She always kept in contact and that was a lifeline definitely knowing that they were there, knowing that they happen to give a … on me. But the other thing that was also being back home feeling that there’s a social security system I had somewhere to go, I could find a flat and get housing benefit. I knew these were escape routes but those are the physical escape routes. The natural ability to get out of the cult is much much harder because you are brainwashed. It is simple as that.

Murray: I was talking to Anne Singleton.

BBC Radio Four/Woman’s Hour

October 15, 2005 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MKO, From”Forough”to Today’s Limbo

On 25 July 1988, in the last days of Iran-Iraq war, after the ceasefire was accepted by Ayatollah Khomeini, the MKO (Mojahedin-e khalq Organization) launched an all-out armed operation against the Islamic republic; despite early breakthrough, it was soon crushed by the military forces loyal to the Islamic Republic. A number of high ranking officials of MKO, who later left the MKO, called it a "military suicide"

This operation, called by the MKO "Forough-e Javidan" (Eternal Light) and called "Mersad" (Ambsuh) by Iranian leaders, was the largest armed move by an iranian opposition group which was performed to topple the Islamic Republic government.

Using heavy weaponry (including tanks, armored vehicles) and with thousands of trained members, Mojahedin entered Iran from Iran on July 25, very easily and determinedly. They soon passed the cities of Kermanshah province and captured Sarpol Zahab, Karand, and Western Islamabad and moved towards the city of Kermanshah.

According to the Iranian officials, the early successes by the MKO had created fear among the authorities and they were concerned that Kermanshah might fall soon and that MKO forces move toward the capital.

It seemed that MKO, conceited of developments and the support of the people of the captured cities, moved toward Kermanshah.

Iranian military commanders say they withdrew intentionally in order to blow back later with stronger force.

According to the officials, Revolutionary Guard and Basij forces started their final operation on July 27, when the MKO was only 40 kilometers from the city of Kermansha. MKO forces were crushed heavily.

Revolutionary Guard commanders say that around 1500 armed members of the MKO were killed in the operation and many of them were wounded or captured.

But Iranian officials have not mentioned the number of casualties on their own side.

Now the MKO calls this operation one of its historical achievements!! They called it "Forough Insurance" and said that they imposed a big blow on the pillars of Islamic republic. They also claim that they killed thousands of Iranian forces.

The MKO has never mentioned the real purpose of this operation and it never says whether it was to capture Tehran. So, in MKO’s point of view, this operation has not failed.

But heavy failure and the high number of casualties of MKO made some members and supporters ask questions on the accuracy of decision (by MKO leader) to attack Iran.

A number of high ranking officials of MKO, who later left the MKO, called it a "military suicide" and put the blame on Massoud Rajavi the leader of the organization.

Many of the experts believe that the waning period of MKO, as an armed group, started since that time.

Former members of the organization say that after that time MKO was more dependent on Saddam Hussein.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein by US-led coalition forces, the MKO left its independence more than ever before and after being disarmed by US forces, was limited to its main base near Baghdad (under the US control).

Now, around 3000 MKO members are living in limbo in Iraq, without clear future.

August 1, 2005 0 comment

Former members of the MEK

Firouzmand; Interview With BBC

In a press conference in Paris, Mohammed Javad Firouzmand-former senior member of MKO- talked about the condition of this organization in Iraq.

After the US invasion to Iraq, he escaped from Camp Ashraf- MKO’s main headquarter led by Massoud Rajavi- and returned to Iran by the assistance of the international Red Cross. He left Iran illegally in a while and arrived in Europe via Turkey. In an interview with BBC, he said of his escape from Camp Ashraf:

– After the Americans took control of Camp Ashraf and its surrounding areas, they started to identify the members of the MKO. They said they wanted to verify that the members were not dangerous. Indeed, two times, they interrogated the members, fingerprinted them and opened a file for each one. The first time, this process was done with the presence of the MKO officials and therefore, it was not possible to escape. But the second times, none of the MKO officials were there. This was the only chance for me to escape the MKO without announcing my intention. I should say that I had once escaped the camp in 2001 but I was arrested by Saddam forces and I was imprisoned and tortured by Mojahedin, and then Massoud and Maryam sentenced me to death. Anyway, I escaped the US-run camp in northern side of Camp Ashraf.

* How many people are now in the US-run camp?

– If we consider it since about 18 months ago, when the first defectors started leaving the MKO, around 700 members have left the MKO so far. Around 500 of this number have returned to Iran under the supervision of International Red Cross and there are now more than 150 former members in the US-run camp, protected by Americans.

* How many remained in Ashraf camp? What’s your estimation of the number of those who want the leave the MKO?

– Around 3000 to 3100 are now in Camp Ashraf under the control of the MKO, without a clear future. Well, it can be said that all of them like to go. In past 17 months more than 700 escaped from MKO and this is unprecedented. And this loss of forces will take the MKO to a deadlock.

* How were you able to get to Europe? What events did you pass?

– In March 2005, under the supervision of Red Cross, there was no way out of Iraq and I was looking for a path to save myself from the hell of Iraq. Iran was the only solution, but a risky one. I said this to the Red Cross. I asked them whether they guaranteed my safety in Iran, because I had a long record of fighting the regime. They said no and that they couldn’t guarantee that in any form, written or verbal. Well, I accepted this risk.

* How did they, Iranian security agents, treat you in Iran? You and others who had returned from the MKO? during the interrogations?

– More than 500 former members returned to Iran. Around 14 returned to Iran just last week. I swear to God, and with 25-year record of fighting this very regime I frankly say that fortunately the elements of the regime received us from the Red Cross and delivered us to our families. They had no negative or bad behavior and I didn’t see any negative effect in their words or practices. This is a reality that I should say.

July 23, 2005 0 comment

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