Iraqi Tribal Leaders Want Mojahedin Khalq (Rajavi cult) Expelled BASRA, Iraq, June 28–Southern Iraq’s tribal leaders held a session Saturday in which they called for a bid to expel the terrorist elements of Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) from Iraqi soil. Speaking at the session, tribal committee chief at Iraq’s parliament condemned the existence of any terrorist organization in Iraq naming the MKO which was considered as a tool in the hands of Iraq’s former Baath regime to suppress Iraqi Shiites. Listed as a terrorist organization by Iran, Iraq, the United States, Canada and the European Union, the MKO is believed to be in charge of several terrorist operations carried out especially in Iran and Iraq. "Southern tribes condemn all terrorist organizations because their hands are stained with Iraqi people’s blood," Daqer al-Mousavi told the session. Iraqi lawmakers and political leaders have long insisted on a request to expel the anti-Iranian MKO from Iraq. Earlier this month the United Iraqi alliance, which is the biggest bloc in the parliament, and the National Kurdistan Alliance, submitted a bill to the parliament demanding an end to the presence of MKO terrorists in Iraq which was approved later. Iraqi officials say the group is playing a significant role in violence and insecurity in the country. "MKO members are crossing freely in Diyala every day and enjoying the most facilities in the province while Iraqi people are struggling with starvation to survive," Salem al-Dorraji, one of the tribal leaders, told Alalam reporter. "We have no place for those who slaughtered Iraqi people in 1991 and are still killing our people, they must leave our soil immediately," al-Dorraji added.Supported by Saddam Hossein, the MKO committed widespread crimes in Iraq, killing many people, after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Iraq, June 29, 2008 http://www.alalam.ir/english/en-NewsPage.asp?newsid=031030120080628225807
"Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:”>Reported by MKO’s official website, in an official letter to Iraqi Parliament the group has asked “to attend the Iraqi Parliament’s open session in order to clarify before the honest Iraqi people by presenting evidences and documents”. It is not a bad thing to clarify existing ambiguities but trying to make justification for certain crimes and atrocities is another thing.
"Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:”>We are thinking what evidences MKO can present to gainsay its close collaboration with the ousted dictator who funded them and granted them the deserted military camp of Ashraf to rebuild it a ‘city’; its espionage and military activities, the operation Eternal Light as the group openly boasts, against Iranian people; its accomplice with Saddam’s notorious intelligence service and military units to suppress the insurgent Iraqi Kurds and riding over their bodies commanded by Maryam Rajavi; its free move into Iranian POWs camps to incite them join the group against all international conventions and aiding the security forces in their interrogations and tortures while the ICRC was under sever limitation for its supervision; its maintaining several cells within the horrible Abu-Ghoraib prison for the chastisement and harassment of its own insiders; its numerous meetings with Saddam and other high ranking Iraqi authorities to express loyalty and strengthening mutual brotherhood as well as demanding for logistic aids; its present intelligence collaboration with coalition and the US forces; its recurrent interfering in Iraq’s domestic affairs and organizing unapproved gatherings in Camp Ashraf; its close ties with pro-Saddam anarchists and other insurgent and terrorist groups that cultivate further national discordance and foster ethnic and regional conflicts; and much, much more instances.
"Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:”>Does MKO think that the evidences for the mentioned atrocities are missing or the Iraqi people have forgotten about its deeds? Of course, as the world is aware, MKO leaders are masters of fabricating justifications and have the answers ready up their sleeves. A look at the presented evidences before POAC to justify a long history of perpetrating terrorism suffices. The Iraqi government’s decision to expel the group from the country and recognizing it a terrorist entity never changes under any justification and what the terrorists call ‘clarification’.
Children are the most vulnerable victims to cults’ abuses and even in this modern world and in the heart of countries enthusiastically battling for the revival of the human rights we witness instances of children’s abuses by cults freely acting before the eyes and even protection of the law. It was only yesterday that the news came out with the reports of the removal of an additional 85 children from a polygamist remote compound Ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect, bringing the total to 137 survivors. Officially released, State troopers, Texas Rangers and investigators from Child Protective Services raided the ranch on Thursday night to serve search and arrest warrants after a 16-year-old girl complained of sexual and physical abuse within the cult. It is not the first and will not be the last report of the children being abused by a cult. Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (a.k.a. MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCRI), a globally blacklisted terrorist cult, has long abused children and has separated them from their parents sending them to many countries far from their parents to live with foster-parents or in orphanages in an attempt to force their parents stay with the organization. In fact, in this form of manipulation, children were abused as hostages whose destiny is now unknown even to their parents. Batul Soltani, an ex-member, was a member of the Leadership Council of the MKO who left the organization in 2006. She is the mother of two children taken away from her long ago. In an interview with SFF, she briefly talked of what has happened to her and her children: My name is Batul Soltani daughter of Morteza. I was born in 1965 in Iran and at the moment I live in Baghdad. I married Mr Hosein Moradi in Iran in 1986 and then we moved to Pakistan the same year. There we were recruited into the MKO and the next year, which is 1987, we were ordered to go to Iraq. In 1991 we were separated by the order of the organisation and yet again by their order our children were taken away from us and sent to Europe. My husband and I initially resisted these orders and did not wish to either be separated from each other, nor to abandon our children, but we were put under enormous psychological pressure and we were forced to submit to their demands. My daughter Hajar Moradi was born in Pakistan in 1987 and my son Mi’ad was born in Iraq in 1991. In the year 1991 while Hajar was 5 years old and Mi’ad was 6 months old, they were separated from us – after we were forcibly separated from each other – and they were sent to Europe. They did not allow us to have any contact with them at all. I still remember my daughter crying hard as she was leaving me. And the innocent face of my six months’ old son is always before my eyes. Many years later I found out that my daughter had been given to a family in the south of Sweden with the fake name of Setareh Khabbazan, and she is now studying in a university in the north of that country. My son was taken to Holland by a family and later moved to another family and eventually was left in an orphanage and now he lives in a care centre for youth in Holland. I do not have any further trace of them and do not even know if they know me at all. The MKO would not give me any addresses and I have no means to contact my children. Has any child protective organization ever investigated MKO for countless instances of child abuses and unknown destiny and whereabouts of about 800 taken apart children? Not talking of many sons and girls whose parents are impatiently looking over the walls of Camp Ashraf, located in a remote desert in Iraq, to see them unbound. Being known as a destructive terrorist cult, MKO is a big threat for the global peace and its own insiders. It is a responsibility on humanitarian bodies to intervene before it is too late.
Mojahedin.ws,
Anne Khodabandeh, who is of British nationality and the wife of the Iranian
Massoud Khodabandeh, replied to the article published by "Alseyassah" on the first of this month under the heading "Iraqi warnings from the agent of the Iranian regime by the name of Massoud Khodabandeh", in a letter sent to the cultural office at the embassy of the State of Kuwait in London, of which "Alseyassah" has received a copy. In the reply, Massoud says that "the article was slanderous and defamatory to my good name and unfortunately its anonymous writer did not try to contact me by email or by telephone or at my address in Britain, or at the Centre de Recherches sur le Terrorism in Paris where I work". He refers to the scurrilous accusation made by the remnants of the Baathist regime in Iraq which links his name and his wife’s name to the Iranian intelligence services – which is completely untrue and there is not a shred of evidence for the lies which appear in that article. 
He also gives the reason why it was published. Mr Khodabandeh explains that he lives in the United Kingdom and is currently visiting Iraq at the invitation of government officials, and was invited in order to attend various meeting on the issue of foreign terrorist groups in Iraq. He adds that "in the course of this work I have regular contact with the US army and relevant humanitarian bodies and I am seeking ways to rescue people from the hands of the Saddamists in Diyali province". He considers that "as all Kuwaiti citizens know all too well, the "Mojahedin-e Khalq" organisation acted as Saddam’s private army in Iraq and helped to crush the Kurdish uprising in 1991 at the end of the first Gulf war. The Iraqi Government is now determined to remove all remnants of the Baathist regime, including the Iranian foreign terrorist group "Mojahedin-e Khalq", from its territory". He adds "I have travelled to Iraq to help those people who want to leave the group to find refuge and return to their families and to normal life."
He concludes by saying that readers of the newspaper "Alseyassah" will understand now why the Saddamists have tried to blacken his name and he states that the paper’s editors have acted properly in giving him the right to reply.
In this connection, it is important for "Alseyassah" to explain to Mr and Mrs Khodabandeh and to our readers that what was published on the first of February was an announcement and not an article and it was not simply ascribed to anonymous sources but it made clear in it that it was an announcement issued by the "League of Iraqi Academics and Educationalists" and it is important to explain that the accusations made by the League that Mrs Ann and her husband are "working in the service of the Iranian security services in Iraq and that they are carrying out the tasks of the Iranian regime under false pretences" were accusations carried by "Alseyassah" but not espoused by it, as was stated in the announcement itself.
The paradoxical stance adopted by the US towards Mojahedin-e Khalq cultist organization has turned into a rather serious challenge mounting the already existing tension between the US and Iran. According to a number of political analysts, the dual stance might be the result of internal political disparities among the parties. But it has to be noted that regardless of all disparities, the parties reach a consensus when it comes to confront any alien element that imperils the country’s general interests. However, the prevalent political contradictions emerged mostly after the State Department first designated MKO as a terrorist organization in 1997, a status that the group continues to occupy ever since.
Despite MKO’s claim that its classification as a terrorist organization was at the behest of the Iranian government, the State Department’s latest report describing the group a cult of personality as well as a terrorist group indicates that the Americans have well realized the group’s threats. The internal disputes to deproscribe MKO in no way mean that some have come to be duped by group’s pro-democratic propagandas but rather it is regarded as an easy tool against Iranian regime. The speculation was even further underpinned when the group came to receive protection of the coalition forces in Iraq following Saddam’s fall. However, there are many undeniable factors, especially disclosed by the State Department’s report, that convince Americans never put any trust on the group. The features can be classified as:
– MKO’s Marxist ideology
– Group’s innate antagonism with capitalism and adoption of armed struggle to start a mass movement against capitalism
– Perpetration of terrorist operations against American military personnel and civilians inside Iran
– Playing a pivotal role to escalate the emerged US-Iran tension following the Islamic revolution
– supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979
– MKO’s secrete ties with the USSR and the communist camp in general
– A zealous attachment to Machiavellianism
– Masterminding terrorist plots against American interests inside Iran
– Unannounced but implicit acknowledgment of al-Qaeda’s 9/11 terrorist operation
– Wearing a mask of pro-democracy as a tactic to assume political power
– maintaining the capacity and will to commit terrorist acts across the world
– close military and intelligence collaboration with Saddam’s regime Regardless of all lobbying attempts to get the group off the hook, MKO remained on the list. But the raised question is that how a designated organization happened to be the first terrorist organization to be granted ‘protected status’ by the US in its move to combat terrorism?
Hardly any of the designated terrorists groups on Americans’ list strive for getting close to the US to gain political legitimacy and most of them are recognized to be jeopardizing American interests here and there. In contrast, MKO hankers after convincing Americans that throughout its campaign, it has tried to accomplish a goal of establishing democracy on the US model. Interestingly, the group in an attempt to justify its claim distorted its past records of activities and adopted ideology. The best evidence is its published Democracy Betrayed wherein the group tries to prove absolute devotion to American favoured capitalism and liberalism.
But Americans are well aware of the fact that exactly in the same way that they manipulate the group, Machiavellian mannerism is theorized within MKO. That is why Americans, in spite of the heavy cost they sometimes have to pay, keep in touch with the group while is keen to it at a distance; that is exactly what America is doing in Iraq.
Soon after Americans settled in Iraq, more than a year after the invasion, they actually frustrated MKO’s liberation army by disarming it. In July 2004 all members of MKO in Iraq, including the leadership of the organisation based there, signed agreements which permitted them release from the control and protection of the Coalition forces in Iraq. In order to obtain that benefit, each individual had to sign a statement containing the following words:
…I agree to the following:
a. I reject participation in, or support for terrorism.
b. I have delivered all military equipment and weapons under my control or responsibility.
c. I reject violence and I will not unlawfully take up arms or engage in any hostile act. I will obey the laws of Iraq and relevant United Nations mandates while residing in this country.
Thus, renunciation of militarism was enforced on MKO against its will and its terrorist potentialities were curbed in Iraq. Furthermore, by setting up Temporary International Presence Facility (TIPF) in the vicinity of Camp Ashraf, dissatisfied members were granted opportunity to leave the group which debilitate the organization to a large extent. Beyond that, the State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism in its last report released on April 30 for the first time brought up establishment of a cult of personality by its leader:
In addition to its terrorist credentials, the MEK has also displayed cult-like characteristics. Upon entry into the group, new members are indoctrinated in MEK ideology and revisionist Iranian history. Members are also required to undertake a vow of "eternal divorce" and participate in weekly "ideological cleansings." Additionally, children are reportedly separated from parents at a young age. MEK leader Maryam Rajavi has established a "cult of personality." She claims to emulate the Prophet Muhammad and is viewed by members as the "Iranian President in exile."
To sum up the Americans views, they indirectly argue:
– That MKO is a terrorist group that maintains unusually aberrant manners compared with other blacklisted organizations
– That its mannerism is rooted in its cult-like structure
– That MKO is a greater potential cult threat beyond its terrorist threat
– That the group is not only a global threat but also a closed cult enslaving its own members physically and mentally
– That the granted ‘protected status’ in Iraq is a measure to have it under control and to find an appropriate way of restoring the members’ mental health
– That instilled by the hope that it can win the US support, MKO can be prevented to commit mass-murder suicide like that of Jim Jones cult of the Peoples Temple
– That it is possible to have MKO under strict control through international conventions
– That the US’s paradoxical deal with MKO is the result of recognizing group’s dual terrorist-cult nature
– That MKO respect no political ethics in its campaign to assume the power
– That the gained experiences over destructive cults like Jim Jones and David Koresh is a warning to be more cautious and conservative to cope with MKO
– That ….
It can be continued with more reasons to see why the US has adopted a paradoxical but rational approach concerning MKO. Mojahedin.ws-February 2, 2008
A round table discussion centred on the issue of terrorism in Iraq and possible solutions to this problem. The Symposium was divided in to 3 parts: – the general threat posed by terrorist groups and the ways they operate in Iraq – foreign terrorist organisations in Iraq – the creation of terrorist organisations in Iraq and the global supporters of these terrorist groups Participants of the Symposium ranged from university professors including, Dr. Aziz Jabar Shayal, Dr. Samir Alshweely and Dr. Rasheed Saleh, professors of Political Studies from the University of Baghdad. The Symposium was also attended by many governmental and non-governmental representatives from a wide range of ministries and NGOs, including representatives from Iraq’s Ministries of Defence, Human Rights and Security.
Massoud Khodabandeh from the Centre de recherches sur le terrorisme depuis le 11 septembre 2001 (Paris), who was in Baghdad for meetings concerning the fate of the remaining individuals following dismantlement of Camp Ashraf which houses the disarmed Iranian terrorist organisation Mojahedin Khalq Organisation, was invited to participate in the discussion.
Prominent among the participants was Mr. Bassam Alhassani, advisor to Prime Minister Noori Al Maleki.
The Symposium ended with a full report on the issues discussed and Dr. Aziz Jabar Shayal delivered the end resolution in which one paragraph emphasized the necessity for the dismantlement and deportation of the foreign terrorist Mojahedin Khalq organisation and encouragement and facilitation by the government and others to help the remaining individuals find a safe palace outside Iraq and return to normal life.
The symposium was covered by media representatives who reported from the meeting room.
Alaraghia television, Iraq’s main TV network, reported the Symposium and broadcast a brief interview with Massoud Khodabandeh.
In the interview, Massoud Khodabandeh emphasised above all the right of the Iraqi people to enjoy security and have justice served against the perpetrators of violent acts in their country, in particular the criminal heads of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation which was involved in the massacre of the Kurdish and Shiite uprisings against Saddam Hussein in March 1991. Mr Khodabandeh said that in his belief and according to all the studies of the Centre de Recherches sur le Terrorisme, the phenomenon of terrorism cannot have a single solution and needs inter governmental cooperation as well as the involvement of NGOs to protect the human rights of the who have been inveigled by terrorist leaders into this path, and to give them a second chance of integration back into their societies.
Thanking the organisers of the Symposium Mr Khodabandeh emphasised the cult culture of terrorist organisations and the methods they use to brainwash their followers. He also gave examples of foreign support by some influential groups and parties who facilitate the flow of finance for terrorism. Not the least the relationship between the remainders of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, London, Washington and other countries with the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation, and the way this relationship is becoming clear in the escalation of violence in Diyali province as well as the streets of London and other European countries.
The Symposium lasted for over two hours. Afterwards the participants formed smaller groups to further discuss the variety of issues raised by the Seminar.
A full report and media coverage will be published shortly. Thursday, 31st of January 2008.
Centre for International and Inter-governmental Studies of the University of Baghdad
The best way for the US to start rolling back its regime change policy, both editors and several officials said, would be to dismantle a US-backed militia of Iranian exiles based in Iraq, known as the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK). The MEK supported Saddam Hussein in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and subsequently its 3,600 fighters, many of them women, stayed on in Iraq. According to US sources, since the invasion of Iraq US intelligence agencies have disarmed the fighters but have kept the MEK camps near the Iranian border intact, using MEK operatives for espionage and sabotagein Iran and to interrogate Iranians accused of aiding Shia militias in Iraq. Until recently, MEK radio and TV stations broadcasting to Iran were based in Iraq, but Iranian pressure on the Baghdad government forced their relocation to London. When the moderate Mohammad Khatami was elected president of Iran in 1997, the State Department made a conciliatory gesture by listing the MEK as a terrorist organisation guilty of human rights violations, and it is still on the list. Dismantling the MEK paramilitary forces would be an effective way to signal US readiness to accommodate Tehran, suggested Abbas Maleki, an adviser to the National Security Council, since it is the only militarised exile group seeking to overthrow the Islamic Republic and is the darling of the Washington lobby for regime change in Iran. Alireza Jaffarzadeh, chairman of the MEK’s front group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, appears regularly on the conservative TV channel Fox News as its Iran expert, rather like the pro-US Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi before the Iraq invasion, rallying Congressional and media support for military action against Iran. As its terrorist listing of the MEK showed, the Clinton administration hoped for a diplomatic opening to Iran. When the Republican House speaker, Newt Gingrich, pushed through an $18m appropriation for non-lethal covert action to force the replacement of the current regime in Iran, the White House restrained the CIA. But the Bush administration was quick to change course. Cheney shared Gingrich’s goal of regime change and he persuaded doubters that pressure on Tehran would strengthen the US in negotiations to end the uranium enrichment programme. First, the administration revived and expanded the dormant plans for direct US non-lethal covert action. Then, in February 2006, it obtained a $75m appropriation from Congress for an overt State Department programme “to promote openness and freedom for the Iranian people”. Finally, it cast about for covert ways to harass the regime militarily without the need for a formal presidential finding. … Selig S Harrison is director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (both in Washington), and author of In Afghanistan’s Shadow: Baluch Nationalism and Soviet Temptations (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1980) ———————– full Report: Covert action, economic pressure and destabilisation; The US meddles aggressively in Iran
Le Monde Diplomatique, Selig S Harrison, October 01, 2007
Despite the disaster of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration wants not just to deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions but maybe even to overthrow the Islamic Republic. It has already authorised ‘non-lethal’ action within Iran and helped separatist groups. But instead of supporting the country’s democratic opposition, US meddling has encouraged its hardliners to reinforce their positions
The battle lines are familiar and clearly drawn in the unresolved policy struggle over Iran within the Bush administration. Vice-President Richard Cheney and his allies in the Pentagon and Congress, prodded by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), not only want the US to bomb the Natanz uranium enrichment facility but are also calling for air strikes on Iranian military installations near the Iraq border.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wants to test diplomacy first by broadening the US-Iran negotiations on stabilising Iraq that began in Baghdad in May. But, as the price for postponement of a decision on military action, she has agreed to a self-defeating compromise that has directly undermined the Baghdad negotiations: increased covert action to destabilise the Islamic Republic, formalised by a presidential “finding” in April.
Covert action to undermine the Tehran regime has already been under way intermittently for the past decade. Until now, however, the CIA has operated without a finding (authorisation for covert action) by using proxies. Pakistan and Israel, for example, provide weapons and money to insurgent groups in southeast and northwest Iran, where the Baluch and Kurdish ethnic minorities, both Sunni Muslim, have long fought against the repression of Shia-dominated Persian regimes.
The presidential finding was necessary to permit accelerated non-lethal activities by US agencies. Besides expanded propaganda broadcasts, a media disinformation campaign and the use of US and European-based Iranian exiles to promote political dissent, the programme focuses on economic warfare, especially currency rate manipulation and the disruption of Iran’s international banking and trade.
Although the finding was nominally secret, it did not stay secret for long after it was reported to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, as required by law.
On a recent visit to Tehran, everyone was talking about it and both conservatives and reformers agreed that it came at an unusually damaging moment of genuine opportunity for cooperation with the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. Senior officials in the foreign ministry, the National Security Council, the office of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and pro-government think tanks all said that stability in Iraq and Afghanistan is in Iran’s interest. Cooperation with the US is possible, they said, but only in return for a gradual accommodation between Washington and Tehran, starting with a complete cessation of covert and overt regime change policies.
“The United States is like a fox caught in a trap in Iraq,” said Amir Mohiebian, editor of the conservative daily Reselaat. “Why should we free the fox so he can eat us? Of course, if the US changes its policy, there is scope for cooperation.”
At the other end of the journalistic spectrum, Mohammed Adrianfar, editor of Hammihan, identified with the moderate former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, said: “The atmosphere here is for starting negotiations and relations. People want stability. The slogan ‘Death to America’ doesn’t work, and our leaders know it. It’s an irony that two governments which are now enemies have many of the same interests in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
While officials would not discuss whether Iran is aiding Shia militias in Iraq and, if so, which ones, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Majlis (parliament) Foreign Affairs Committee, criticised US “coddling” of Baathist and Sunni elements and made it clear that Iran expects Shia domination as the prerequisite for stability in Baghdad and for US-Iranian cooperation there as part of an overall accommodation.
“The US occupying authorities are not truly pursuing de-Baathification of the security forces,” he said, “and should give the Iraqi government greater freedom to do so. That is the key to cooperation between our countries in Iraq.”
US-backed militia
The best way for the US to start rolling back its regime change policy, both editors and several officials said, would be to dismantle a US-backed militia of Iranian exiles based in Iraq, known as the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK). The MEK supported Saddam Hussein in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and subsequently its 3,600 fighters, many of them women, stayed on in Iraq.
According to US sources, since the invasion of Iraq US intelligence agencies have disarmed the fighters but have kept the MEK camps near the Iranian border intact, using MEK operatives for espionage and sabotagein Iran and to interrogate Iranians accused of aiding Shia militias in Iraq.
Until recently, MEK radio and TV stations broadcasting to Iran were based in Iraq, but Iranian pressure on the Baghdad government forced their relocation to London. When the moderate Mohammad Khatami was elected president of Iran in 1997, the State Department made a conciliatory gesture by listing the MEK as a terrorist organisation guilty of human rights violations, and it is still on the list.
Dismantling the MEK paramilitary forces would be an effective way to signal US readiness to accommodate Tehran, suggested Abbas Maleki, an adviser to the National Security Council, since it is the only militarised exile group seeking to overthrow the Islamic Republic and is the darling of the Washington lobby for regime change in Iran. Alireza Jaffarzadeh, chairman of the MEK’s front group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, appears regularly on the conservative TV channel Fox News as its Iran expert, rather like the pro-US Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi before the Iraq invasion, rallying Congressional and media support for military action against Iran.
As its terrorist listing of the MEK showed, the Clinton administration hoped for a diplomatic opening to Iran. When the Republican House speaker, Newt Gingrich, pushed through an $18m appropriation for non-lethal covert action to force the replacement of the current regime in Iran, the White House restrained the CIA. But the Bush administration was quick to change course. Cheney shared Gingrich’s goal of regime change and he persuaded doubters that pressure on Tehran would strengthen the US in negotiations to end the uranium enrichment programme. First, the administration revived and expanded the dormant plans for direct US non-lethal covert action. Then, in February 2006, it obtained a $75m appropriation from Congress for an overt State Department programme “to promote openness and freedom for the Iranian people”. Finally, it cast about for covert ways to harass the regime militarily without the need for a formal presidential finding.
The most readily available means of doing this was to get Pakistan and Israel to arm and finance already-existing insurgent groups in the Baluch and Kurdish areas through well-established US ties with Pakistan’s Interservices Intelligence Directorate (ISI) and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.
The ISI channelled weapons and money to an already established Iranian Baluch dissident group, Jundullah (Soldiers of God), which inflicted heavy casualties in raids on Iranian Revolutionary Guard units in Zahedan and southeast Iran in 2006 and 2007. The US made no effort to hide its support for Jundullah. On 2 April 2007 the Voice of America interviewed its leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, introducing him as “the leader of the popular resistance movement of Iran”. Several of my Baluch contacts recently provided detailed proof of Rigi’s ISI ties.
Mossad contacts
Mossad has built up contacts in the Kurdish areas of Iran and Iraq since it used bases in Iran during the days of the Shah to destabilise the Kurdish areas of Iraq. Against this background, Seymour Hersh’s report that Mossad is giving equipment and training to the Iranian Kurdish group Pejak is credible (1). Jon Lee Anderson interviewed a senior Kurdish official in Iraq who said that Pejak is operating out of bases in Iraqi Kurdistan to conduct raids in Iran and has “received covert US support” (2). In retaliation, Iran bombarded these bases for two weeks in late August, prompting Iraqi protests.
The most dangerous latent separatist threat facing Tehran is in the south-western province of Khuzestan, which produces 80% of its crude oil revenue. The Arab Shia of Khuzestan share a common ethnic and religious identity with the Arab Shia across the Shatt-al-Arab waterway in Iraq. Ahwaz, the capital of Khuzestan, is only 150km east of Basra, where British forces in Iraq have been headquartered.
Not surprisingly,in the light of history, Tehran accuses Britain of using Basra as an intelligence base for stirring discontent in Khuzestan.
Backed by British forces and British oil interests, the Arab princes of Khuzestan seceded from Persia in 1897 and established a British-controlled protectorate, Arabistan, which Persia did not recapture until 1925. Although most of Iran’s oil wealth is produced in Khuzestan, separatist groups charge that Tehran denies the province a fair share of economic development funds. So far, the scattered separatist factions have not created a unified military force like the Jundullah and no evidence of foreign help has surfaced. But they periodically raid government security installations and bomb oil production facilities.
Several broadcast propaganda in Arabic from foreign locations that are not clearly identified. The National Liberation Movement of Ahwaz, which advocates independence, operates Ahwaz TV, a satellite channel with an on-screen caption giving a fax number with a California area code. Another satellite channel, Al-Ahwaz TV, broadcast by Iranian exiles in California, is linked to the British-Ahwaz Friendship Society, which advocates regional autonomy for the province in a federal Iran. Nearly half ($36m) of the $75m 2006 US appropriation goes to support for the US-operated Voice of America and Radio Farda and to anti-regime broadcasting outlets run by Iranian exiles in the US, Canada and Britain.
Another $20m goes to NGO human rights activists in Iran and the US. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns has revealed that “we are working with Arab and European organisations to support democratic groups within Iran”, since getting direct US funding into Iran “is a very difficult thing for us to do” given “the harsh Iranian government response against the Iranian individuals” (3).
One Iranian participant in a US-sponsored workshop in Dubai last year told the Iranian-American journalist Negar Azimi that “it was like a James Bond camp for revolutionaries” (4). Four Iranian participants were later arrested.
Counter-productive attempts
My clear impression in Tehran was that covert and overt efforts to destabilise the Islamic Republic andpressure it economically to abandon its nuclear programme have been counter-productive. They have given hardliners an excuse to harass Iranians working internally to liberalise the regime and visiting Iranian-American dual citizens such as Haleh Esfandiari of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who was imprisoned for three months on vague espionage charges.
By aiding ethnic minority insurgencies, the US has enabled Ahmadinejad to cast himself as the champion of the Persian majority. The minorities constitute at most 44% of the population. The largest, the Azeris (24%) have been mostly assimilated, and the rebellious Baluch, Kurds and Khuzestani Arabs are bitterly divided between advocates of secession and of a restructured federal Iran. Ahmadinejad can also blame external economic pressures for economic problems that are mainly the result of his own mismanagement.
Negotiated compromises on stabilising Iraq and Afghanistan are possible, but only if destabilisation stops and not if President Bush takes the military steps implied in his 28 August threat “to confront Tehran’s murderous activities” in Iraq. Even if the pressure is relaxed, a definitive nuclear compromise is unlikely in the absence of changes in the US Persian Gulf security posture, though a suspension of the Natanz facility might be possible if Israel would agree to a parallel freeze of the Dimona reactor. “How can we negotiate denuclearisation while you send aircraft carriers to the Gulf that, for all we know, are equipped with tactical nuclear weapons?” asked Alireza Akbari, deputy defence minister in the moderate Khatami government. “How can you expect us to negotiate when you won’t talk about Dimona?”
The covert and overt pressures so far applied to Iran are just sufficient to infuriate Iranians of all political persuasions, strengthening the hardliners, but are not nearly enough to undermine the regime. The economic pressures are more effective than the covert insurgency aid. Out of 40 European and Asian banks doing business with Iran, though, only seven have cut ties with Iran in response to US sanctions. In any case, Iran is routing its international business though 400 Dubai-based financial institutions, mostly Arab. With trade between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, including Dubai, nearing $11bn this year, US Undersecretary of the Treasury Stuart Levey’s threat of reprisals against firms dealing with Iran, in a speech in Dubai on 7 March, were pointless. The administration is now pushing more sharply-targeted measures against enterprises linked to the Revolutionary Guards and the conglomerates run by clerical interests, but their impact has been limited.
Likening the US-Iran tussle to a bull fight, a respected European ambassador long resident in Tehran asked: “What’s the point of all this? What good does it do to keep waving the red flag? It just makes the bull more and more angry. It doesn’t kill.”
(1) “The Next Act”, The New Yorker, 27 November 2006.
(2) “Mr Big”, The New Yorker, 5 February 2007.
(3) Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 11 October 2006.
(4) “The Hard Realities of Soft Power”, New York Times Magazine, 24 June 2007.
Selig S Harrison is director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (both in Washington), and author of In Afghanistan’s Shadow: Baluch Nationalism and Soviet Temptations (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1980)
Le Monde Diplomatique, Selig S Harrison, October 01, 2007
Speaking on PressTV’s "Middle East Today" program on Saturday evening, Dr. Mohammad Marandi, the head of North American Studies at Tehran University said, "The Bush administration has never shown any evidence to show in any way that Iran’s nuclear energy program is anything but peaceful."
He asserted that the United States is utilizing a militia group it currently labels a terrorist organization in an attempt to strike Iran. In collusion with this terrorist group, the Iran Policy Committee, formed in 2005, is a pressure group that aims to influence U.S. government policy towards Iran. The IPC fervently believes that regime change in Iran should be the policy of the Bush government.
The IPC much creative suggestion is removing the Iranian-opposition terrorist group Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MKO) from the State Department Foreign Terrorist Organizations list. The committee then suggests the U.S. government arm and train the group in Iraq for insurgency operations within the Islamic Republic.
"The United States sees itself as being somewhat exceptional in the international community," Marandi said, "it allows itself to support terrorist organizations that have killed thousands of Iranians on the streets of Tehran and other major cities. The MKO spied for Saddam Hussein during the war. These terrorists were and are stationed in Iraq, in Europe and the United States."
Marandi said this is very counterproductive, "It allows people to see the extent of American hypocrisy. This is a very dangerous game the Americans are playing."
Mojahedin.ws – 09/10/2007
Asked about Iran’s support for terrorist groups, Ahmadinejad turned the question around and accused the U.S. of backing terrorist groups that he alleged train in Iraq to launch attacks in Iran. The reference is apparently to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, a group linked to attacks inside Iran. The group is on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups
(Mojahedin Khalq (Rajavi cult) served under Saddam’s Regime against it’s own country during the 8 year Iran-Iraq war) (Saddam’s support for Mojahedin Khalq was announced by President Bush in 2003 as one of the reasons for invasion of Iraq!!)
Israel Faxx, By Ha’aretz, September 26, 2007
www.Israelfaxx.com
Today, in Iraq’s political, legal and press circles, we are witnessing hot debates on the role of Mojahedin-e khalq of Iran in suppressing the uprising of Iraqi in 1991. The case was opened by Iraqi Chief Prosecutor Jafar al-Mousawi, when he announced that investigations prove the involvement of terrorist elements of Mojahedin-e Khalq in killing Iraqi people and that Iraq’s judiciary is determined to prosecute them, even if they have left the country.
A while ago, news agencies quoted al-Mousawi saying that 150 MKO members, including Maryam and Massoud Rajavi would be sued legally and that Iraq’s High Criminal Court will investigate the crimes against Iraqis wherever, even outside Iraq.
Prosecutor pointed to a number of measures taken in this regard and said: "We have taken steps to return and try them here. During the investigations on the crimes former criminal regime, documents were retrieved showing that Mojahedin-e Khalq committed crimes against Iraqis during 1991 uprising in southern and northern Iraq."
"These crimes include massacre, torture, arrest, misusing Iraq’s public properties and receiving a share of oil revenues from Saddam," he added.
On the other hand, MKO’s media in Camp Ashraf reject the reports and accuse al-Mousawi of intending to massacre MKO members. Some Sunni forces of Iraq also supported the MKO and rejected Prosecutor’s comments on the group’s role in killing Iraqis.
To understand the issue and the activities of so-called "NCRI" in Iraq, the case of their activities and their ties to former regime of Saddam, their presence in Iraq for two decades and their activities during uprising days in 1991, should be studied on the basis of military, intelligence and surveying and the participation of this group with Baathists in killing Iraqis should be examined very carefully. Security aspects of the issue should be reviewed, apart from media controversies (on Iran’s interference in Iraq), because it’s an Iraqi issue.
Of course, there are documents, events and facts proving MKO crimes in Kefri, Tuz Khormato, Kelar and southern parts of the country. The author of this text witnessed the crimes of this organization in Kelar in March 1991. Painful events are still in the memories of Kelar people. The victims, most of whom employees of the hospital, saw the crimes of the group.
Another important issue is the presence of Mojahedin-e khalq in Iraq. The purpose of establishing MKO’s camps and bases in Baghdad was to build a military shield around the capital. There were Khantari base in western Baghdad (between Baghdad and Ramadi), Khales base, Khan Banisa’d in the north and another base inside Baghdad. Besides, there were other bases near Kirkuk, which were occupied by this organization after Iraqi forces took the control of this city during Anfal operation in 1988.
Here I should point to a book in French, written by a former member of Mojahedin on NCRI’s killings in Tuz Khormato and Kefri in 1991. We can’t cover the details in this article, so we leave it for later. On the events in Kelar, I should add that after Suleimanieh was cleaned of Iraqi security forces in 1991, the college of fine arts was established in the city and I was a student there. At that time I lived out of Kelar. Once I went to Kelar, and I was waiting for a car to take me to Suleimanieh when Peshmerga forces announced that several tanks with white flags were moving from Jelula towards Kelar. First, we thought they were Iraqi tanks, coming to surrender. So, Peshmerga forces didn’t react. One of the tanks headed towards the north and closed city’s exit way and the other was moving towards city’s hospital.
Meanwhile, a white civilian car from the hospital moved towards the highway, carrying 25 hospital workers. Tank opened fire on them and killed all the workers. Other tanks stopped near the city’s well-known fortress "Shirvaneh". By now, Peshmerga forces had understood that these were MKO’s tanks, coming to control the city. It was only a few days since Iraqi forces have left the city.
The beginning of MKO’s war against Iraqis returns to early day’s of 1991 uprising in Tuz Khormato. At that time, MKO forces pretended to be going to Khles through Tuz Khormato. They talked to Peshmerga commanders and Kurd officials allowed them to go because the issue had nothing to do with them. However, as soon as passing the city, MKO forces closed the exit and opened fire on the city. A civilian bus with 30 passengers was hit. All on board were killed.
In a few days, MKO members forced the people to leave their homes and go to Kelar on foot. This mercenary group moved towards Kefri, killed women and forced the people to leave their homes. They were stronger than Iraq forces and Peshmerga with their old weapons couldn’t stop these foreign forces, armed to teeth with modern weapons and trained by Iraq’s Republican Guards.
It’s natural that MKO is trying to defend itself now but it can’t hide its crimes against Iraqis.
There’s no dispute in the way this organization acted, because the memory of Iraqis is full of their organized terror, committed under the supervision of Baathists. Those supporting this group should know that this group is only a burnt card, lacking even a supporter in Iran and political-military influence.
Iraqmemory.org, September 25, 2007
http://www.iraqmemory.org/inp/view_printer.asp?ID=799 (Arabic)