Ann Singleton has a past unlike most people working for the Iranian Mujahedin in Iraq attempting for the overthrow the Iranian government. Today I’m talking to her about her experiences and the lessons that she learned. I will ask her about the feeling of working with a terrorist organization, fighting in the desert and how did she get involved with them in the first place? She has a fascinating story. Ann Singleton, she lives in Leeds, she has got a six year old child and she is a computer programmer. What we hear, you say is that Ann has got a past unlike many others. She used to be part of the Iranian Mujahedin training in a camp in deserts of Iraq, preparing to overthrow the Iranian regime. So what happened and how did Ann get involved with a terrorist organization that was intending to invade Iran. What lessons did she learn? Now she joins me.
Good morning Ann!
Singleton: Good morning Rosina.
Interviewer: let’s start from the beginning. How did you get involved with the Mujahedin? For those who don’t know just explain who the Mujahedin are.
Singleton: they didn’t have an idea about the organization. Of course they saw the people I communicated with, were very kind, very sincere, very self sacrificing and very educated people. They couldn’t understand why a white British woman can actually get involved with Iran at all. They couldn’t understand the obsession that I had. My parents told me: if you want to show your concern about human rights, why don’t you help the Amnesty International for example. But I was totally taken over by the group. I was taken over to the point where I believed that my parents had no idea about anything and that I have the answer to everything.
Interviewer: hadn’t that happened to you in your life outside the university?
time, it was basic military training which was gotten in any army, consisted of marching, learning how to dissolve, collective training, how to fire a Kalashnikov, how to load it, how to clean it. We learned how to drive heavy vehicle and that was a basic thing. What the organization was doing and we were totally unaware of, they were watching our performance, our commitment, our submission, how far we will be willing to submit to the demands and from the group that I was with, they selected about five or six women for further training and that is how these organizations work, they may train a 100, from that hundred people they will take a few of them to the further step and the further step and the further step and of course the end game is suicide machines.