Mujahedin Khalq Terror group

Suicide operation, an ultimate solution to security dilemma

Sahar Family Foundation: Can you elaborate on classified information in the organization, as it may have different definition in terms of use?

Batool Soltani: It is the kind and degree of information that every member of the organization Suicide operation, an ultimate solution to security dilemma carries concerning himself, his responsibility and his relation with other cells. More specifically, there were other ranks who, because of their organizational responsibilities, knew the residence of the leadership and his/her visiting locations. Of course, this classified information vary in terms of sensitiveness and secrecy according to the responsibility of the members and their contact with higher rankings but the importance lies on the concentration of the information in the hands of the members who form the linking ring between others.

The operation teams who came to Iran for armed operation, for instance, carried some related information, or it was the same with members residing in other European countries out of the headquarters in Auver-sur-Oise. They knew details about the location of the camps, the members and their responsibilities and even information about the launched operations or those at hand. As a result, the organization emphatically required the teams about to embark on operations to swallow their cyanide capsules as soon as they felt a risk of arrest.

The emphasis got stronger especially after the 9/11 terrorist incident when the traffic in European countries were under heavy surveillance and there was a high possibility of arrest that could lead to extraction of information under investigations. We had strict order, especially the members of the Leadership Council who carried a high volume of information, to commit suicide if anyone came to be a suspect in confrontation with Interpol.

The rankings travelling between Iraq and the Europe or between Auver-sur-Oise and other countries had strict instruction for self-annihilation. It can be said that the most secure and safest measure of protecting information devised by the organization was suicide. The important point to consider here is the cheap value of man within the organization.

SFF: Will further explain the responsibilities of the members of the Leadership Council concerning the classified information?

BS: The information that the members of the Leadership Council carried were classified as secrete. It was because of their relation with the leadership which was systematically regarded very important. It meant that they had to take the ultimate precautionary measures to protect themselves not because of their own life but as they carried foremost organizational information which made them suicide vanguards. They had always a guard accompanying them who had the responsibility of finishing the job if he/she refrained to commit suicide or possibly thought of a mischief or escape. A member of Leadership Council had to have a ready scheme of suicide being it with cyanide, gun or any other way.

But the priority was always laid on the destroying of the carried documents before doing away with yourself. The means depended on the circumstance and how you could prepare them as easy as possible. There was a time when the organization possessed no gun and cyanide was the best choice, but the time came when it was vice-versa. I was one of those who always carried a gun when in Camp Ashraf or whenever I had a trip to Baghdad. We had strict orders to shot ourselves when sensing the minimal danger of being attacked or arrested. Once I was in England and although I was not yet a member of the Leadership Council, I had instruction of committing suicide since I had second hand but sensitive information like the location of headquarters where the Rajavis lived or moved and the security measures concerning them. It was the same with the information about the headquarters in Auver-sur-Oise and in possibly in other countries.

Of course, some information were declassified within the organization as they happened to lose their secrecy and importance, but they remained classified for the outsiders. In some occasions when the carried information were of a very high secrecy, the members carried a mixed means of suicide, that is to say, both gun and cyanide because in some cases the cyanide had failed to act. Later it was decided to carry two cyanide capsules to ensure that one at least would work.

That is how they emphasized on measures of protecting information and were sensitive about them. All this complicated, systematic deeds happened in an atmosphere as if they were living in a different planet. That is why far from any rationale and logic, to guarantee the protection of the information, the organization grabs at a most secure way, suicide and self-annihilation.

SFF: You said in some cases the cyanide had failed to act. Can you explain about them?

BS: As far as I can remember it record in the related report, it was the time when Arash Sametipour had been sent to Iran for operation. He broke his cyanide when he was on the verge of arrest but the capsule failed to work and he went into a coma only to revive after a while. It had critical aftermath for the organization. Unaware of the arrest of Marjan Malek, for example, the organization first announced her martyrdom in the course of her operation and even Rajavi himself appreciated her as a heroine but later, when it was revealed that she had failed suicide and was in custody inside Iran, anything changed overnight and she was declared to be an agent of the Islamic Republic. The failure of suicides was thus very crucial and cost the organization a lot; it was commitment to these suicides that decided the organizational identity and the status of the individuals in the organization.

Noteworthy, following the reported cases of failure, there established a section whose responsibility was to check over the vehicles of suicide to ensure its efficacy. There were two kinds of check up, routinely done or case related. The former was done in a frequent period of a few months while the latter was a test of an operative’s cyanides before his dispatch to the mission. Once in Camp Ashraf, before the presence of Americans and when they had no limitation, they exclusively provided two cyanides for each member of the Leadership Council. But then everything changed and there came a time when cyanides and guns were not as abundant as before; the cyanides were all collected from among those who once had to carry them.

Instead, they innovated a new way of controlling members with sensitive and secrete information and members of the Leadership Council in particular. Now there was a special division with the responsibility of constant monitoring and surveillance of the members with highly classified information; they had the responsibility of helping them through any available means to eliminate themselves in case of facing any risk of arrest or else; the means could be a gun, cyanide, petrol, ethanol or anything else.
Translated by Mojahedin.ws

July 5, 2009 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

US Lawmakers Call For Supporting Terrorists In Iran

The Obama administration should be doing more to support Iranian resistance groups — including the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK), a "cult-like" terrorist organization that has engaged in suicide attacks against their own countrymen, according to the U.S. State Department — in an all-out effort to affect regime change in Tehran, two American lawmakers said at a recent press conference in Washington, DC.

The lawmakers’ call for greater U.S. support for self-styled resistance groups opposed to Iran’s government comes as the Islamic regime has accused groups protesting the recent disputed presidential election of receiving Western backing.

At a Capitol Hill press conference on June 26th, Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, declared that the U.S. government, which has imposed stringent economic sanctions on Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution and supported Iraq’s invasion of the country in the 1980s, had too often sought "to mollify or appease those in charge" of that country. Instead, Filner argued the U.S. should explicitly side with Iranian "resistance groups", including the MEK, which he described as a "democratic, non-nuclear, secular group fighting for freedom for all the people in Iran."

The U.S. State Department notes that the MEK "advocates the violent overthrow of the Iranian regime and was responsible for the assassination of several U.S. military personnel and civilians in the 1970′s," and that the group maintains "the capacity and will to commit terrorist acts in Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, and beyond."

Following the Iranian revolution the MEK fled Iran for neighboring Iraq, where it received support from Saddam Hussein’s regime to launch "suicidal, mass wave attacks against Iranian forces." The MEK’s fighting on behalf of the Iraqi regime in a war that killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians is generally seen as undermining their credibility among the Iranian public.

Human Rights Watch has also accused the group of perpetrating serious human rights abuses, including torture, at a number of secret prison camps.

Nonetheless, citing the internal unrest in Iran over last month’s disputed presidential election and the fact that an invasion "is not an option today," Filner said the U.S. government should be doing much more to support "one of the biggest resistance groups in Iraq, the so-called MEK.
"They say, ‘Let us do the job; get out of our — just get out of our way,’ because we have not helped the internal resistance movements," Filner said. "We can help internal resistance movements in Iran, and we should not stand in their way of trying to get rid of the present regime."

Joining Filner in the call for greater U.S. support for the MEK was Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who briefly fought alongside the Afghan mujahideen in their war against the Soviet Union. Though declared "freedom fighters" by the Reagan administration, the mujahideen proved to be fertile recruiting grounds for the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Conceding that, like the Afghan mujahideen, the MEK is not "perfect," Rohrabacher said that "during the American revolution there were a lot of imperfect organizations around too. But the fact is, the mullahs are what now — they are the ones who are murdering their people. They are the ones who are threatening world peace."

Rohrabacher also rejected the premise of a question about whether overt U.S. support for terrorist groups opposed to the Iranian government might undermine future U.S.-Iran negotiations.

Filner and Rohrabacher appeared at the press conference with Soon Sansami, currently the executive director of the Women’s Freedom Forum. Previously she was the spokesperson for the National Council of Resistance, identified by Filner as "the umbrella Iranian internal resistance movement in the United States." The U.S. Treasury Department lists the group as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" organization and one of many "aliases of [the] MEK."
Antiwar .com

July 3, 2009 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

MKO provoked post-vote unrest

An Iraqi security official says the terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) triggered the recent post-election unrests in Iran.

National Security Advisor Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said in an interview with al-Hayat that certain members of the terrorist group had instigated and fomented the recent political unrest in Iran.

"We have intelligence reports available that certain elements of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) infiltrated into the crowd of protestors [after the election results were announced] and sparked the riots."

The announcement of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election sparked opposition rallies in the capital Tehran with defeated candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi rejecting the result as fraudulent and demanding a re-run.

President Ahmadinejad’s victory caused Mousavi supporters to take to the streets to protest the vote result. The rallies turned violent, resulting in the death of at least 20 people.

Al-Rubaie, however, rejected claims that MKO members had entered the country through neighboring Iraq, claiming that MKO terrorists were ‘either already in Iran or had entered it from another country’.

Iranian security officials had earlier reported that a large number of MKO members who were involved in recent riots had been identified and arrested.

According to security officials, the detained MKO members had confessed to receiving extensive training in Iraq’s camp Ashraf to create post-election mayhem in the country.

The MKO is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by many international entities and countries, including the US.

The group was exiled from Iran after the Islamic Revolution and settled in Iraq in 1986, where it enjoyed the support of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The MKO is responsible for numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials as well as Iraqis during the reign of Saddam.

July 2, 2009 0 comment

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

Elements of Mojahedin organization in Tehran Riots

Rubaie told “Al Hayat”: the stability of Iran and Iraq is in the regional interest

LONDON – Raed Jaafar – The national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said the security and political stability in Iran is in the interest of the region in general and Iraq in particular, and warned that any political or security flaw in Iran would have a negative impact in the region in general and Iraq in particular, explaining that “Our intelligence confirms that during the manifestations of opposition, elements of the Mujahideen infiltrated among the demonstrators, giving rise to riots”.

Rubaie told “Al Hayat” that “the differences between the so-called Reformists and Conservatives in Iran focus on domestic issues more than specific foreign policy”. Referring to “the absence of major differences in the foreign policies of Iran”, he added “Whoever wins in Iran will not change the policy with Iraq since Tehran’s policy toward Iraq will not be much affected by the victory of any of the parties”, explaining that “foreign policy is almost uniform with the same constants”.

Rubaie said that the “Iraqi leaders governing the country now, and since the days of the late opposition to the regime of President Saddam Hussein, have strong historical ties with the ruling power in Iran now, the conservatives, from the top of the pyramid below them”. He continued: “They have been in power for a long time, such as the Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the others, and have close ties with the Iraqis, and that gives Iraq a particular role for the Iranian regime”.

He added: “But we do not know many Reformists, and we had no relations with them in Iraq despite their 8 years under Khatami. We were not in power (in the first two years after the occupation of Iraq) and there is no strong relationship with the Reformists, without that meaning any diminution of them”. He added that “the Conservatives understand Iraq more than the Reformists, as they have a clear record in support of the Iraqi opposition (during Saddam’s rule), and support for the political process after the fall [of Saddam]”.

Rubaie confirmed “we do not interfere in the internal affairs of Iran in any way, in a trend to prefer any party, but limit ourselves to respect the choices of and support the Iranian people and respect the existing system of the Constitution and laws, institutions and others in Iran”.

He added: “But from our point of view from outside and our knowledge of Iranian affairs, and our long experience, we believe that the vast majority of Reformers are part of the very essence of the Islamic system».

He added that “Our intelligence confirms the presence of very small groups, few in number, including elements of the Mojahedin organization in opposition to the regime, which infiltrated demonstrations in protest against the results of the presidential election, which escalated the protests and demonstrations into riots”.

Rubaie denied the possibility of infiltration of the «Mujahideen» from Camp Ashraf in Diyala province, into Iran to participate in the protests or the riots there, explaining that the Iraqi authorities overseeing the camp do not allow its members to get out, and added that “elements of the Mujahideen entered from several countries into Iran, not from Iraq, some of whom were already present, too, to stir up trouble”. He warned that the “high probability of migration is the opposite for these elements, therefore, we have enhanced our intelligence level of preparedness and readiness on the border with Iran, for fear of infiltration of the elements of the Mujahideen Khalq, and crossing the border into Iraq and their attempt to enter the Camp Ashraf”.

In addition, some criticized the Arab media, dealing with the repercussions of the Iranian presidential elections, as “short-sighted, as I believe that support for the Reformists can win the Reformists and weaken Iran”. This was seen as a “kind of revenge or wishful thinking”, stressing that “any instability in Iran, meaning the lack of stability in the region, especially the Gulf States and Iraq”. He said that “some of this is media-driven, non-political, professional”, referring to the “ethnic and racial factors which play a role in this area, such as Arabs and Shi’ites, and this demonstrates the short-sightedness of the media … considering that the stability of a large country like Iran in the region is a stabilizing factor for the entire region”.

Al Hayat (Arabic), London,

July 1, 2009 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO role in a Color Revolution

In his new book, "Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order," F. William Engdahl explained a new form of US covert warfare – first played out in Belgrade, Serbia in 2000. What appeared to be "a spontaneous and genuine political ‘movement,’ (in fact) was the product of techniques" developed in America over decades. With respect to Iran’s post-election crises, there is a discourse underlined “Iran’s Made-in-the-USA "Green Revolution" that offers reasons for a new attempted American backed color revolution in Iran.

After Iran’s June 12 election, days of street protests and clashes with Iranian security forces followed. Given Washington’s history of stoking tensions and instability in the region, its role in more recent color revolutions, and its years of wanting regime change in Iran, analysts have strong reasons to suspect America is behind post-election turbulence and one-sided Western media reports claiming electoral fraud and calling for a new vote, much like what happened in Georgia and Ukraine.

The same elements active earlier are likely involved now with a May 22, 2007 Brian Ross and Richard Esposito ABC News report stating:

"The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a ‘black’ operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com. The sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity….say President Bush has signed a ‘nonlethal presidential finding’ that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions."

Perhaps disruptions as well after the June 12 election to capitalize on a divided ruling elite – specifically political differences between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader/Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on one side and Mir Hossein Mousavi, former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri on the other with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard so far backing the ruling government. It’s too early to know conclusively but evidence suggests US meddling, and none of it should surprise.

Kenneth Timmerman provides some. He co-founded the right wing Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI) and serves as its executive director. He’s also a member of the hawkish Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) and has close ties to the equally hard line American Enterprise Institute, the same organization that spawned the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), renamed the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) for much the same purpose.

On the right wing newsmax.com web site, Timmerman wrote that the NED "spent millions of dollars during the past decade promoting color revolutions in places such as Ukraine and Serbia, training political workers in modern communications and organizational techniques." He explained that money also appears to have gone to pro-Mousavi groups, "who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that (NED) funds."

Pre-election, he elaborated about a "green revolution in Tehran" with organized protests ready to be unleashed as soon as results were announced because tracking polls and other evidence suggested Ahmadinejad would win. Yet suspiciously, Mousavi declared victory even before the polls closed.

It gets worse. Henry Kissinger told BBC news that if Iran’s color revolution fails, hard line "regime change (must be) worked for from the outside" – implying the military option if all else fails. In a June 12 Wall Street Journal editorial, John Bolton called for Israeli air strikes whatever the outcome – to "put an end to (Iran’s) nuclear threat," despite no evidence one exists.

Iran’s rulers know the danger and need only cite Iraq, Afghanistan, and numerous other examples of US aggression, meddling, and destabilization schemes for proof – including in 1953 and 1979 against its own governments.

On June 17, AP reported that Iran "directly accused the United States of meddling in the deepening crisis." On June 21 on Press TV, an official said "The terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) has reportedly played a major role in intensifying the recent wave of street violence in Iran. Iranian security officials reported (the previous day) that they have identified and arrested a large number of MKO members who were involved" in the nation’s capital.

They admitted to having been trained in Iraq’s camp Ashraf and got directions from MKO’s UK command post "to create post-election mayhem in the country." On June 20 in Paris, MKO leader Maryam Rajavi addressed supporters and expressed solidarity with Iranian protesters.

In 2007, German intelligence called MKO a "repressive, sect-like and Stalinist authoritarian organization which centers around the personality cult of Maryam and Masoud Rajavi." MKO expert Anne Singleton explained that the West intends to use the organization to achieve regime change in Iran. She said its backers "put together a coalition of small irritant groups, the known minority and separatist groups, along with the MKO. (They’ll) be garrisoned around the border with Iran and their task is to launch terrorist attacks into Iran over the next few years to keep the fire hot." They’re perhaps also enlisted to stoke violence and conduct targeted killings on Iranian streets post-election as a way to blame them on the government.

July 1, 2009 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MKO behind Iran embassy attack in Sweden

Iranian authorities say anti-Iran terrorist group MKO has been involved in the recent attack on the Iranian embassy near Stockholm in Sweden.

The Iranian Embassy in Sweden came under attack on Friday when more than 150 people gathered outside its main building to protest the outcome of the June 12 presidential election.

One of the embassy personnel was seriously injured in the attack, police said.

Rasoul Emami, Iranian Ambassador to Sweden, said members of the terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) were found to be among the assailants.

According to Emami, the terrorists have been caught on camera smashing the windows, breaking through the building, attacking embassy staff and tearing down the fence.

The remarks come only a week after Iranian security officials discovered that the terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) had helped intensify the post-election violence in Iran.

According to the security officials, the arrested members had confessed that they were
extensively trained at their bases in Iraq’s camp Ashraf to create post-election mayhem in the country.

Founded in the 1960s, MKO is a guerilla group, which masterminded a slew of terrorist operations in Iran.

The terrorists are especially notorious for taking sides with former dictator Saddam Hussein during the war Iraq imposed on Iran (1980-1988).
The group masterminded a slew of terrorist operations in Iran and Iraq — one of which was the 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic Republic Party, in which more than 72 Iranian officials were killed.

A 2007 German intelligence report from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has identified the MKO as a "repressive, sect-like and Stalinist authoritarian organization which centers around the personality cult of [MKO leaders] Maryam and Masoud Rajavi".

June 29, 2009 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

The curious case of Iran’s Mujahedin

David Shariatmadari: A group of senior British politicians claims the Iranian Mujahedin are Iran’s best hope of reform. Are they right?

They’ve been described by British politicians as "brave patriots" and "the main democratic Iranian opposition group". Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Christopher Booker said the organisation they set up, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, was "real opposition to the dictatorship" and "the best hope of transforming Iran into a secular, democratic, non-terrorist country". On Wednesday, another Telegraph group journalist, Con Couglin, called them "the leading Iranian dissident group". Their devoted fans include Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, Lady Turner of Camden, and Andrew Mackinlay, a member of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee.

So who are they? And how come you’ve never heard of them?

Well, the People’s Mujahedin, otherwise known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq, called monafeqin (hypocrites) by their detractors and either PMOI, MKO or MeK for short, have been around for nearly half a century. Their origins can be traced to the radical politics of the years before 1979, and their early history is one of ideological twists and turns, schisms and betrayals. To cut a very long story short, they lost out to supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini in the early days of the revolution and in response to a bloody crackdown began a paramilitary campaign against the fledgling republic. During the Iran-Iraq war they were given refuge by Saddam Hussein and allowed to mount attacks on Iran from within Iraqi territory, where they still maintain a settlement, now known as Ashraf City. Reports suggest they were involved in the suppression of the Kurdish uprising after the 1991 war. In 2001, they renounced all military activity. Despite this, they were put on the EU’s terror blacklist in 2002, a decision which was reversed in 2008.

Since their exile from Iran, they’ve spent a great deal of time trying to win westerners over to their cause, and the single-mindedness of some of their supporters has proved remarkably effective. The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom, which lobbies on the group’s behalf, counts among its members a surprisingly large number of peers and MPs, many of whom, judging by their parliamentary interventions and speeches, seem to have an understanding of Iran’s history based entirely on the standard PMOI line.

Others have been more difficult to convince. The UK government, for example, which tried hard to prevent their removal from the list of proscribed organisations. In 2005 Human Rights Watch (HRW) produced a report into abuses at Ashraf City (then called "Camp Ashraf"). The PMOI’s supporters in Europe and America were quick to brand HRW’s informants "suspicious individuals". The PMOI denied the claims and the National Council of Resistance of Iran said the "accusations only serve as a license to the mullahs’ regime to continue the execution and suppression of PMOI members and supporters in Iran". Last summer, I interviewed Joe Stork, director of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa and asked him about the reaction to the report. "The Mujahedin organisation has, it seems to me, done a pretty good job of cultivating fans, in various countries in Europe," he said. "The reaction on the part of those people was quite vociferous. Denouncing the report, attempting to delegitimise it, putting what seemed to me an awful lot of effort and resources into discrediting the report. Unsuccessfully, in my view."

The picture of the PMOI you get if you do a bit of research – talking to disinterested parliamentarians, former members and journalists who’ve investigated them – is of an organisation that relies heavily of the cult of personality, subjects its members to intense psychological pressures, and massively inflates its level of support inside Iran. It was the subject of an investigation by the German government agency charged with monitoring "foreign extremism", has been accused by HRW of perpetrating serious human rights abuses within the last decade and by others of being complicit in Saddam Hussein’s crimes against his own people.

More relevant, perhaps, is the fact that Iranians who live in Iran regard the PMOI as totally marginal to contemporary politics. At best it’s seen an embittered faction whose main constituency is gullible western politicians. At worst, its members are regarded as lunatics who sided with the enemy during a war in which hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iranians died.

Why is any of this important? Well, the PMOI provides the current Iranian government with an easy scapegoat. The more senior parliamentarians collude with PMOI, put their names to their turgid press releases and organise debates on their behalf, the more the Iranian government’s accusations of can be made to carry water. Tehran claimed this week that PMOI activists, and the group’s London command centre, were behind some of the recent protests.

June 27, 2009 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq 's Function

Democracy As Usual in Iran

This observer in Tehran can inform you that the (English-language) media frenzy and its sensationalism has breached the limits of reality and has hijacked the essence of debate in Iran.
It is used as a diversion to eclipse a rejuvenation of a democratic process. The hyped protests, all within a square mile in west of Tehran, are simply a storm in a teacup and all of it must be framed in perspective. A civil war, a revolution or regime change, it is not.

Let us first remember that Iran is a country of about 72 million people, a third of whom are under 25 years old. A turnout of some 50,000 angry mobs (or even one million people, something that has not happened) is not exemplary of the rest. The other 71+ million people also have rights, lives and a desire for quiet pursuit of happiness and peace. Isn’t democracy about the will and rule of the majority, as well as the rule of law and civil order? Or should it be narrowly interpreted (by foreign media) as the right of a select tech-savvy few with computers, email and foreign language skills to project a distorted scuffle and civil disorder? Are elections not about discipline and order, after all? Or should the rules be overturned at random by crying foul and burning down banks and shops, simply because losers dislike the results of the very same system in which they signed up and ran campaigns?

Secondly, the blatant sudden turn of events after the election has not been properly explained to most Iranian youngsters and foreigners with a cursory knowledge of Iranian affairs. In fact, it has nothing to do with the election itself. The violence of June 20th marked the 28th anniversary and a rerun of a major street battle in Tehran between the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MKO-MEK) and their rivals during the early days of the Revolution. The rivals won 28 years ago and the MKO-MEK (a Stalinist, violent group that has no mind for the democratic process or even internal elections) was forced into exile. Many of their members were arrested and jailed when Mr. Mousavi was prime minister.

The MKO-MEK can be best described as the Persian speaking wing of the degenerated Iraqi Baath Party and an earlier species of Al Qaeda back in early 1970s– a contemporary of the Red Brigades and the Baadermeinhof terror organizations in Europe. For decades, it has been designated as a terrorist group by most countries. They murdered American military advisers in Iran prior to the 1979 Revolution. MKO was on Saddam’s payroll to kill Iraqi Shiites, in exchange for having a base in Iraq. The source of their budgets remains murky, but MKO maintains an underground system in most European and North American cities, with lobby networks and a few chameleon fronts and disguised names that mask the organization.

MKO’s Camp Ashraf base was under protection of American forces and, despite the terrorist designation, they did “business” with Mr. Rumsfeld’s secret Task Force 20 for a few terror jabs at Iran in a hostile, ill-conceived regime change dream concocted by Mr. Cheney & Co. After the pullback of American forces in Iraq, the Iranian and Iraqi government have negotiated to close Camp Ashraf north of Iraq and extradite the key figures, the final round of which has been postponed until after elections in Iran. Hence the tsunami of one-way, ill-informed pressure on mostly English-speaking media by the MKO-MEK lobbies machine, an attempt to derail recent events beyond reality and divert attention away from formation of democracy. In other words, modern politics is snuffed out by a wave of violence, using uninformed young protesters as a shield—many of whom were not even born 28 years ago and are clueless about it all.

Otherwise, why would a legitimate Iranian “protester” hold up a sign in English, a foreign language, and pose for cameras if the idea is to protest against the Iranian state in Persian?
Recent developments in Iran are two distinct different matters, albeit foreign media have stitched it all up into one big bubble of insane hype. Somehow, all have forgotten about the purpose of an election. Simply put, the foreign mass media has been duped by a terrorist organization with modern (terror?) techniques of vilification in an abusive manipulation. Polluted prejudice and a lazy default on absurd vocabulary and zingers such as “regime change”, talk of “rogue behavior” or relapse to the perception of the 1953 coup has hijacked reality.

It is time for the world to realize that the Iranian political system is maturing. It is futile and silly for foreigners to insist upon their perceived views of Iran, even if media outlets turn to full time bullhorns of hostile policies of their governments. In the real world, in a territory about the size of Western Europe, Iran conducted a peaceful and historical election without peer in the region and Iranians have embarked on a new course of democracy, not a violent revolution or a coup or a crackdown plan to serve divide-and-dominate games of hostile foreign governments.

It is sad to see civil disorder in any place. But it must be framed in perspective and it is nothing short of a travesty to see the essence of a democratic process is summarily trampled in favor of sensationalist views of the relative few troublemakers with a questionable past and foul intentions.

Democracy is a process, not a project. It must be encouraged with cool heads and it must even-handedly left to the indigenous people to find their own way over time. Within living memory, meddling by foreigners in Iranian politics bluntly delayed and damaged the century-old desire of Iranians for a democratic system.

Iranians have not forgotten that and chances are that an absolute majority of Iranians are not going to let such meddling happen again.
Dr. Ali Ettefagh,

(Dr. Ali Ettefagh serves as a director of Highmore Global Corporation, an investment company in emerging markets of Eastern Europe, CIS, and the Middle East.)
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal
/ali_ettefagh/2009/06/democracy_as_usual_in_iran.html

June 27, 2009 0 comment

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

Judge Underlines Iraq’s Resolution to Expel MKO

Head of Iraq’s Court of Appeal judge Munir Haddad said that Iraq’s people and government are resolved to expel the anti-Iran terrorist group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) from the country.

“The great powers, the US in particular, are seeking to reach many of their goals through terrorists, specially the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization,”Haddad said in a meeting with Secretary-General of Habilian Association Seyed Javad Hasheminejad.

Habilian Association is an Iranian non-governmental entity formed of the bereaved families of terror victims.

Haddad further condemned the US support for terrorists in Iraq, and underlined that the MKO has played an active role in sowing discord and violating peace in the country.
“Wherever the US sought to create sabotage and terror, the MKO has played an active role,”Habilian website quoted Haddad as saying.
Haddad further pointed out that the MKO has long sought to stir political feud between Iranian and Iraqi brothers, but its efforts have backfired and caused closer ties between the two Muslim neighboring nations.

Hasheminejad, for his part, noted that the presence of the MKO in Iraq is a violation of the international law, reiterating that the hues and cries by a limited number of pro-MKO media and supporters in Europe can in no way sway the law in this regard.
He further expressed hope that terrorism in Iraq would disappear in the near future.

The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq’s Diyala province, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.
The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).

Many of the MKO members abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.

A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.
According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.

Numerous articles and letters posted on the Internet by family members of MKO recruits confirm reports of the horrific abuse that the group inflicts on its own members and the alluring recruitment methods it uses.

The most shocking of such stories includes accounts given by former British MKO member Ann Singleton and Mustafa Mohammadi – the father of an Iranian-Canadian girl who was drawn into the group during an MKO recruitment campaign in Canada.
Mohammadi recounts his desperate efforts to contact his daughter, who disappeared several years ago – a result of what the MKO called a”two-month tour”of Camp Ashraf for teenagers.

He also explains how the group forces the families of its recruits to take part in pro-MKO demonstrations in Western countries by threatening to kill their loved ones.
Lacking a foothold in Iran, the terrorist group recruits ill-informed teens from Iranian immigrant communities in western states and blocks their departure afterwards.
The group, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and western targets.

Leaders of the group have been fighting to shed its terrorist tag after a series of bloody anti-western attacks in the 1970s, and nearly 30 years of violent struggle against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The group started assassination of citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief Mohammad Hossein Beheshti, who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.
The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.

Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by the neo-conservatives in the United States, who argue for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

June 25, 2009 0 comment

France

Nejat Society Letter to France Ambassador

Dear France Ambassador in Tehran,
Six years ago, French Police, under the order of interior ministry, attacked Mujahedin khalq’s base; in a village Parisian suburbs called “Auver Sur Oise” and could infiltrate the camp using explosives they discovered about one hundred satellite dishes; millions of Euros, and various documents. This operation was launched by one thousand and two hundred (1200) security agents and eight hundred (80) counter terrorism squad members. At that time the then interior minister of France announced that MKO’s base had been established for Logistical, organizational and financial objectives. And this reached its summit after Saddam was over thrown and Masoud Rajavi was disappeared and his wife Maryam Rajavi ran away and also when the group was disarmed by US army in Ashraf base, Iraq.

Therefore the group moved its base to France to find another way to carry out its terrorist, spying, sabotage acts under the cover of Refugee’s Rights. As the officials of your interior ministry stated “since 2001, one hundred and ninety-five various operations of the group had been guided from Auver Sur Oise. And all this resulted in arrest of Maryam Rajavi by French Police. After a few days, Maryam Rajavi was released but her juridical file remained open. And now, as we are near the sixth anniversary of this clamorous day; we expect your country to work on this file again and not to let the leaders of this terrorist group stay free.

As the result of recent terrorist acts in Zahedan – a city in west-south of Iran- that caused a lot of innocent people’s death or being injured. And as you know the group of “Jundullah” under the leadership of a man named “ Rigi “, claimed that he had used the information given to them by MKO; and this had become clear ;we expect your country to notice the matter. As a former member of the group I witnessed all inhuman actions of the leaders for ten years and I am ready to take part in any court to reveal their crimes. I expect you, dear ambassador, to let your officials hear my voice and not to witness the growth of such version of Al-Qaida in the world.

Sincerely Yours,
Mohammad Reza Pirnazari

June 20, 2009 0 comment

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