The MEK and the Iranian People

Saudi intelligence chief meets Rajavi

Saudi intelligence chief meets Rajavi looking for an office to create move his terror base
Saudi intelligence chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, met recently in the Jordanian capital, Amman, Masoud Rajavi, head of the MKO terrorist organization, which the Iranians call "hypocrites."

Center of Islamic Haramain, according to informed sources, reported that Rajavi and some of the leaders of the organization who have left Iraq for Jordan in order to move to European capitals and take political asylum, met with a number of intelligence officials of Israel, Saudi Arabia, as well as Jordan, US and France.

The sources added that Saudi intelligence chief and head of terrorist Mujahedeen, Masoud Rajavi, disscused the latest incidents in Iran, and organizing projects for future iranian regime but Muqrin postponed a decision for Rajavi’s request to open an office of his organization in Riyadh to discuss the matter with other senior Saudi officials, while other reports say that Egypt In agreement with Saudi Arabia has offered to open an office for the Organization in Cairo.

July 9, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

How cost effective is western support for the MKO ?

How cost effective is western support for the Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, NCRI, …)?
Following the Iranian election, some in the western media gave their assessment; the ensuing popular protests conducted by ordinary people in Iran following the presidential election had “failed”.

Of course, ‘failure’ indicates that there was some prior agreed aim or achievement, which in this case was not fulfilled. And there can be little doubt in anyone’s mind that what these ‘experts’ mean is that what the Iranian people ‘failed’ to achieve was regime change.

In fact, recent events have exposed, if nothing else, that the real failure has been in outsiders’ understanding and assessment of Iranian society and politics.

Looking at Iran from outside and through the lens of ‘regime change’ has led many western analysts and politicians to a false perception of the country – one based on wishful thinking rather than facts on the ground.

Perhaps it is this generally upheld false perception which has allowed American politicians, in particular, to convince themselves to pursue unhelpful – even damaging – policies aimed at ‘supporting’ Iranian people’s desires for social change and political progress. This has continued for some time in spite of clear calls from Iranians themselves (many in the USA) to stop funding so-called ‘opposition’ groups – among which it has become axiomatic that American support for your cause is the ‘kiss of death’.

There is, however, one group which has actively courted American support and which indeed is entirely dependent upon it because it has no constituency among Iranians, whether inside or outside the country. Of all the CIA backed ‘regime change’ groups, the nefarious Mojahedin-e Khalq is markedly different. For one thing, the group is profoundly unpopular among right thinking Iranians wherever they live and whatever their politics. Indeed in western countries, post-election protestors of all persuasions have angrily and vigorously expelled MKO activists from their demonstrations. The roots of this unpopularity certainly go back to the MKO’s collaboration with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. But it can also be traced to the MKO’s ideological belief in violence, its quasi-religious status and its use of cult methodology to recruit and maintain its membership.

To cover up this lack of support the MKO held its annual ‘bigger than ever’ June 20 commemoration rally in Paris in order to ‘prove’ its credentials. The fact that it has to pay attendees and that it reports attendance at around 1000% greater than the capacity of the venue does not embarrass the group or its backers.

It may seem strange, even in the context of American ‘interfering politics’, that such an unpopular group has western backers. But clearly the MKO offers something which no other group does. In simple terms the MKO offers Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

Camp Ashraf was established by MKO leader Massoud Rajavi and Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war and remains the MKO’s main ideological and military training base.

What makes the MKO unique in the context of external opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran is the group’s willingness to use violence. In all its bases, but in Camp Ashraf in particular, the group’s members are indoctrinated using cult methodology inthe group’s ideology of violence and self-sacrifice so that they will perform acts of violence, terrorism and assassination to order without question.

This naturally renders them a valuable asset for any external enemy of the IRI which is prepared to fund and facilitate that violence.

No wonder the regime change proponents refuse to let the group follow its natural path of diminution and dissolution. No wonder the American Army was tasked with protecting and maintaining the group in Iraq even after the same force had disarmed the group as a foreign terrorist entity in 2003, and even though the MKO has been on America’s own terrorism list since 1997.

So far so logical. But where the logic falls down is in the detail and that detail is the MKO’s actual track record. For thirty years the MKO has carved out a niche for itself by preying on the Iranian people’s legitimate struggle against the narrow constraints imposed on them by their successive governments by posing for an ignorant and gullible western audience as a their leading cohort.

Although allegedly implicated in the recent violence in Iran and in Sweden, in reality over the past thirty years the MKO has been unable to effect any change whatsoever inside Iran through any means. The group’s last viable attempt to overthrow the ruling system was in 1988 with the Eternal Light operation. The attempt failed and thousands of MKO civilians lost their lives. Since then the group has been impotent and has done little more than launch irritant terrorist attacks into Iran from neighbouring Iraq. (Ironically, Maryam Rajavi recently donned a green scarf supposedly to signal to Mir Hossein Moussavi’s supporters that she is ‘on their side’. The MKO appear to have conveniently forgotten that Mr Moussavi was Iran’s Prime Minister in 1988.)

Currently the Iraqi Government is acting upon its legal obligation to remove all foreign terrorist groups from the country. This means the MKO’s base Camp Ashraf is in the process of being dismantled. The former militants living there will be removed to third countries; namely Europe. Of course, the removal of Camp Ashraf does not mean that the MKO will no longer be able to provide mercenary forces for regime change proponents. The MKO’s foreign terrorists will relocate to Europe and will have to adapt their tactics accordingly.

What the MKO’s western backers might want to consider is the cost effectiveness of continued support for a group which has nothing but self-promoting propaganda to show for itself after thirty years.
By Ann Singleton

July 9, 2009 0 comments

Auver-sur-Oise

MKO in search of an alternative Ashraf in Europe

One of the main priorities of MKO has been finding a new strategic spot after the fall of Saddam and being disarmed by the US forces. The reason why Rajavi moved to Iraq was the strategic closeness to Iranian soil that extended thousands kilometers of borders with it which facilitated an easy infiltration to launch across the border terrorist activities. The political conflict of Saddam with Iranian government as well as this strategic position led him to ally with Masoud Rajavi to exploit his so-called National Liberation Army (NLA). He also employed MKO members as infiltrators and spies to the point that Saddam and Rajavi soon recognized signs of ideological and blood kinship. However, the fall of Saddam disappointed all hopes of Rajavi and left him in a desperate attempt to look for a new place to settle his forces in a bid to accomplish his long failed objective of overthrowing the Iranian regime.

Nevertheless, the attempts of Rajavi in recent years have been futile failing in transferring MKO members from Iraq that is no more a safe haven for those who were once engaged in committing terrorist actions against Iraqi people on their own soil. The hostile position taken by Rajavi in Iraq despite his illegal settlement therein has been a warning for other countries not to let him and his organization in. Rajavi is well aware that at the time being no country consents to give refugee to Mojahedin due to their notorious terrorist nature and past history. However, he is looking to find an alternative Camp Ashraf with the same geographical merits. Turkey is a perfect options yet it is no more on the agenda of Mojahedin due to tens of political reasons. Furthermore, Pakistan and Afghanistan would never let Mojahedin enter their soil. On the other hand, Mojahedin have to leave Iraq and Masoud Rajavi must find another location for its organization and undergo a fundamental change in his policy based on the use of NLA. In the present conditions, Rajavi has to ignore the factor of geographical privilege and focuses more on finding a fixed abode wherever possible.

France may be an alternative for Mojahedin. The significance of France for Rajavi is twofold: First, a great number of MKO high rankings are refugees in France and can return there if necessary. It makes the organization pay due costs for transferring all its members to Auver-sur-Oise. Second, Auver-sur-Oise was the first residence of Mojahedin after their expulsion from Iran and now has adequate facilities to accommodate the remnant of MKO members. But it is what MKO wishes and hopes for while other factors and levers seem necessary. Will France ever risk letting a globally recognized terrorist group in? France in recent years has proved to be disinterested in MKO policies and it is highly probable that it would refrain to brook its transfer to its soil. However, Mojahedin have some levers at hand that may pave the way for their transfer to the West and France in particular. It is almost three decades that Mojahedin have misused the discords and conflicts of the western parties and leftists in particular to win the support of westerners. They have managed to expose themselves to the European countries by means of pro-democratic slogans of some leftists under the banner of supporting human rights.

The significance of Auver-sur-Oise for Rajavi lies in the fact that establishing another Camp Ashraf is almost impossible but in Auver. To this end, MKO is extending its territory therein by buying the houses next to the residence of Maryam Rajavi. It indicates that MKO is hopeful to transfer to Auver. This is a warning given in advance by many experts:
The People’s Mojahedin of Iran has hardly any choice but to begin moving their activities to Europe. To do this, they can count on active support from a certain”Progressive International”which has hoped for years to weaken the West. This ultra-Left has no roots in the traditional political currents of thought, even using the idea of”democracy”as bait to lead the unsuspecting into the maze of a kind of instinctive socialism.1
Mojahedin have other levers for paving the way for their transfer to Auver. According to an expert on terrorism:

The leaders of the PMOI have decreed what they call ‘a phase of patience’ and ‘judicial mobilisation’. This is to add the help of lawyers in assisting the PMOI members obtaining political refugee status so that they can enter Europe legally.

By small groups of five or six, they move into host countries under the cover of charitable organisations. The PMOI is reorganizing to turn itself into a machine for political combat. It would like to appear to have given up armed struggle, but it is truly incapable of thinking in any other way. For now, they want people to forget the shadow of Saddam Hussein”. 2
In a nutshell, Mojahedin can impose themselves on European countries and France in particular by means of some levers and factors. Fabricating a legal legitimacy for a terrorist group is a warning for the West that is carried out by a number of western left parties in a hostile reaction to the policy of their governments. The entrance of a terrorist group’s members to Europe not only spoils the continent’s prestige among the international community as following a double policy in combat against terrorism, but also exposes the host government to irreversible damages in its internal and external relations, not speaking of the costs that a full control over the activities of the organization will impose.

References:
1. Gessler, Antonie, Autopsy of an Ideological Drift, chapter 1: The end of tolerance.
2. ibid, chapter 24: Low Profile

July 8, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

The MEK and the Iranian Protests

The MEK or MKO is a Marxist organisation with a long history of attempts to overthrow various Iranian governments. They helped Saddam Hussein in the war against Iraq. After the US invasion they were disarmed and confined to camps in Iraq. They are on a US list of terrorist organisations even though Europe recently delisted them. They are great organisers and lobbyists for their cause and have some supporters among US politicians who also want them removed from the US terror list. The group renounced the use of force some years ago.

The Iranian govt. believes that they are involved in demonstrations in Iran. Here is a piece from
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/98647.htm?sectionid=351020101

Sun, 21 Jun 2009
MKO Leader Maryam Rajavi has called the MKO as the real winner of Iran’s election. 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 Saturday that they have identified and arrested a large number of MKO members who were involved in recent riots in Iran’s capital.

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

They had also revealed that they have been given directions by the MKO command post in Britain.
Street protests broke out after defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi rejected President Ahmadinejad’s decisive win in the June 12 election. His supporters have staged a series of illegal rallies ever since.

Iran’s deputy police commander, on Saturday, warned against the mass gatherings, asserting that those who engage in any such actions would be severely reprimanded.

Earlier on Saturday, MKO leader Maryam Rajavi had supported the recent wave of street violence in Iran during a Saturday address to supporters in Paris.

Rajavi had reportedly described the MKO terrorists as the real winners of the Iranian election.

The Mujahedin Khalq Organization is a Marxist guerilla group, which was founded in the 1960s.In the past two decades, MKO leaders have been resettled in the northern outskirts of Paris.

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".

Anne Singleton, an expert on the MKO and author of ‘Saddam’s Private Army’ explains that the West aims to keep the group afloat in order to use it in efforts to stage a regime change in Iran.

"With a new Administration in the White House a pre-emptive strike on Iran looks unlikely. Instead the MKO’s backers have put together a coalition of small irritant groups, the known minority and separatist groups, along with the MKO. These groups will 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," she explains.

"The role of the MKO is to train and manage these groups using the expertise they acquired from Saddam’s Republican Guard," Singleton added.

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

———- The group has a website that looks quite professional. I wonder where the money comes from. There is a long article by Jeremy Hammond detailing numerous organisations that the US has used as a means of regime change in various countries. He mentions the MEK (or MKO for Iranians) There is also a good article describing the camps in Iraq and illustrating the cult like character of the group. There is no doubt about their total commitment to their cause: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/103/story/58809.html Here are a few sections from the Foreign Policy Journal Article:

A former specialist on the Middle East from the National Security Council, Raymond Tanter suggested the U.S. could work with an Iranian opposition group, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK). “If we are serious about working with groups from within,” he said, “it will have to be with the MEK, because there’s no other opposition force the regime cares about.”

Mehdi Marand, a spokesman for the Council for Democratic Change in Iran, similarly said that some in the Congress were ready to remove the MEK from the terrorist list. “If the US really wants to help the democratic forces inside Iran,” he said, “the only way is to remove restrictions from the opposition.”

The problem is that the MEK is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. Based in Iraq, the group came under the sway of the U.S. after the 2003 invasion that overthrew the regime of Saddam Hussein.

According to former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who was among a few lone voices pointing out prior to the invasion of Iraq that there was no credible evidence the country still possessed weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. was already working with the MEK. Well prior, in 2005, Ritter wrote that the Bush administration had authorized a number of covert operations inside Iran. “The most visible of these”, he wrote, “is the CIA-backed actions recently undertaken by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group, once run by Saddam Hussein’s dreaded intelligence services, but now working exclusively for the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.” The MEK’s CIA-backed operations within Iran included “terror bombings”, Ritter charged.

In July, Seymour Hersh repeated in an interview with NPR that the U.S. was supporting anti-regime terrorist groups including the MEK, Jundallah, and the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK). “The strategic thinking behind this covert operation is to provoke enough trouble and chaos so that the Iranian government makes the mistake of taking aggressive action which will give the impression of a country in acute turmoil”, Hersh said, in order to give the White House a casus belli.

In a July 29 article, Scott Ritter wrote that “American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed…. The CIA today provides material support to the actions of the MEK inside Iran. The recent spate of explosions in Iran … appears to be linked to an MEK operation….”

Hersh wrote another article in the New Yorker in November(note 2008) noting that the Pentagon was increasingly conducting covert operations that had traditionally been the CIA’s domain and giving further details about its activities in Iran. “In the past six months, Israel and the United States have been working together in support of a Kurdish resistance group known as the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan”, which has conducted raids into Iran. He repeated that the “Pentagon has established covert relationships with Kurdish, Azeri, and Balochi tribesman, and has encouraged their efforts to undermine the regime’s authority in northern and southeastern Iran.”

When asked whether the OIA was intended to promote regime change, a State Department senior official told CNN it was “to facilitate a change in Iranian policies and actions” before acknowledging, “Yes, one of the things we want to develop is a government that reflects the desires of the people, but that is a process for the Iranians.”
Then US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton acknowledged in October 2006 that regime change was the “ultimate objective” of the U.S. sanctions policy, and adding that it “puts pressure on them internally” and “helps democratic forces” within the country and amongst the Iranian diaspora.

Administration officials told the New York Times that then Vice President Dick Cheney was promoting the “drive to bring Iranian scholars and students to America, blanket the country with radio and television broadcasts and support Iranian political dissidents.” The program was to be “overseen by Elizabeth Cheney, a principal deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, who is also the vice president’s daughter.”

These are just snippets from a very interesting article. I have seen little in the mainstream press about the Iranian charge that the MKO is involved in the demonstrations probably with the aid of the US.
Iran finds US-backed MKO fingermarks in riots
Allvoices.com -By northsunm32 Brandon
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/3520863-the-mek-and-the-iranian-protests

July 8, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

On the occasion of American Independence Day

All kinds of interesting news has been coming out of the USA during the past couple of weeks. Not least the news of large scale organised American support for Mirhossein Mousavi the defeated Iranian presidential candidate. Notably Mr Mousavi served as the Islamic Republic’s Prime Minister in the early years of the Islamic Republic when the same Americans were calling him the henchman of Ayatollah Khomeini, etc.

It is widely believed that this support for Mirhosein Mousavi under the banner of a so-called “green revolution” has been part of a failed coup orchestrated by the regime change advocates who intended to bring a puppet Middle Eastern style “President” to rule Iran. If this had happened, President Obama would be able to make his next message to the Moslem World under the new Iranian flag rather than under the Egyptian flag alongside “President” Mobarak. But it did not happen and perhaps it could not happen taking into consideration obvious facts on the ground, which have been ignored by the USA for the last 30 years.

There are, of course, others who simply believe that the hugely expensive and costly support of the US Government for the “green revolution of the people of Iran” is down to the commitment of the US Government to bringing DEMOCRACY and HUMAN RIGHTS (yes I am talking about the US of A) to countries across the globe. Whichever way you may look at it, I am sure you would agree that the most hilarious, and at the same time, sad position has been that taken by American law makers who advocate support for the same terrorists who have killed American servicemen.

On the occasion of American Independence Day, let us remember the people who lost their lives for their country and wonder at those people who stand today under the same flag only to LOBBY for the murderers of their servicemen.

“… At a Capitol Hill press conference on June 26th, Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, declared 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 …”
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=6613

“… Lewis Lee Hawkins, the only son of Herman and Mary Webster Hawkins, was born in Chicago, Illinois on 8 August 1930. Herman and Mary would eventually move and raise their family in Plymouth, Indiana… His final assignment came in July 1972 when he was attached to the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group to the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces in Tehran, Iran. Annette and Lee joined Lewis in Tehran where they lived in the Abass-Abad neighborhood. On the morning of 2 June 1973, as Lewis was walking from his home to a street corner to be picked up by his driver, two terrorists riding a motorcycle fired at point-blank range and fired two or three shots killing Lewis instantly. Lewis was survived by his wife Annette; three sons, Terry, Ronald, and Lee; his parents, Herman and Mary Hawkins of Rowan, Iowa; and two sisters Mary Duran of Plymouth and Mona Crocker of Belmond, Iowa. His daughter preceded him in death…”

July 5, 2009 0 comments

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 comments

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 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

In Iran Crisis, Paris Exile Group Plays Disputed Role

As millions of Iranians took to the streets of Tehran over the past week to protest the presidential-election results, exiled opposition group the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) saw its moment. "This uprising is the result of 30 years of murder, oppression and corruption by an Iranian regime we’ve dedicated our entire lives to fighting," Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of foreign affairs for the Paris-based group told TIME. "Even if protesters aren’t calling for [the NCRI] to take power, it’s only natural that, given our organization’s experience, our clandestine networks are playing an important role informing and assisting the Iranian people to achieve its desire of regime change."

Iranian police accused the NCRI and its "terrorist" supporters of fomenting the violence. As evidence, Iran said several NCRI-linked operatives had been arrested after smuggling guns and explosives into the country and carrying out "terrorist acts." On Sunday, the NCRI dismissed the story and mocked what it called the "preposterous and threadbare claims to justify the suppression and killings inside Iran.

Dramatic as all that sounds, it doesn’t square with the reality described by Iran experts. Diplomats, academics and intelligence officials say most people inside Iran want nothing to do with the NCRI or its primary member organization, Mujehadine-e-Khalq (MEK) — whose bloody attacks on the Iranian regime in the 1980s and ’90s landed it on the U.S.’s terrorism list. Experts say the NCRI’s support in Iran is now tiny and its international base is shrinking. The NCRI and MEK, say Iran watchers, have become little more than an excuse — or handy alibi — for Tehran’s crackdown.

"The Iranian population is generally frightened of or repelled by [the NCRI], and the supporters in [Iran] … have all mostly vanished," says Olivier Roy, one of France’s leading experts on Middle East politics and Islam. "It now basically operates abroad as a sect with international branches whose membership is dwindling as its base grows older and young people shun it."

The group’s officials disagree. They claim the NCRI has thousands of members in Europe and North America. As evidence, they point to a rally outside Paris on Saturday that drew as many as 90,000 people to protest the situation in Iran. NCRI leaders are also quick to point out that the organization supplied information from inside Iran that was pivotal in documenting Tehran’s military nuclear ambitions — a fact acknowledged by Western diplomats.

While conceding that the NCRI’s clandestine networks in Iran have been hit by the execution of what he says has been thousands of members and sympathizers over the past two decades, foreign-affairs chairman Mohaddessin says a recent burst of recruiting and activity has restored some of the group’s ability to operate inside the country. Operatives there, he says, are busy gathering intelligence and organizing to undermine the regime. According to Mohaddessin, sympathizers secretly monitored more than half the polling stations during the presidential election, providing the NCRI with enough information to claim that scarcely 15% of Iranian voters bothered casting ballots at all, a number at odds with the reportedly massive turnout seen by foreign media and other observers and the government figure that put participation at 85%.

The NCRI was founded in 1981 to serve as an umbrella organization to Iranian opposition groups, and its dominant force has always been the MEK, which espouses a curious mix of Marxism and Islamist militancy. MEK originally worked with radical Islamist organizations to topple the Shah and rid Iran of what it described as Western imperialism. In the wake of the 1979 revolution, though, the group found itself under attack by its former allies in the new Islamic regime and took up arms. Its military wing was based in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. From there, MEK carried out assassination and terrorist strikes inside Iran and fought alongside Saddam’s army in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

"Many Iranians know victims of MEK violence or still feel the fear and fury its name provokes," says a French counterterrorism official who has followed the NCRI and MEK. "Because MEK remains widely hated in Iran, the mere threat by Iranian leaders that it and NCRI are waiting to take over in the event of crisis tends to chill musings of regime change in Iranian streets."

The U.S., Canada and European Union put the MEK on terrorism blacklists nearly a decade ago. Those governments also alleged that the NCRI was essentially the political arm of the MEK, a claim the NCRI says misrepresents the relationship between the two groups. Though the resulting blacklisting has withstood legal challenge in the U.S. and Canada, a European court this year struck down the MEK’s terrorist listing in the E.U. The new ruling was based on an earlier British court decision that ordered the terrorist designation be lifted because of a lack of evidence that the MEK had been involved in terrorist activity since it renounced violence in 2001. (In Iraq, the U.S. Army disarmed MEK’s Ashraf compound in the country’s east in 2003, calling it a security threat. The Iraqi government has indicated it will close the camp completely.)

Middle East expert Roy says the claims and counterclaims miss the bigger point. While Iranian leaders obsessively hate the NCRI for historical reasons, he says, the NCRI is largely an irrelevancy these days..
TIME – By BRUCE CRUMLEY – Jun. 22, 2009
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/
0,8599,1906172,00.html?xid=rss-world-cnn

June 24, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

MKO footsteps in the recent chaos

Recent information obtained from Paris, London and the UAE reveal that MKO has come under the full mercenary of CIA by providing mental and human resources as well as intelligence help to America’s Central Intelligence Agency so as to play a major joint role in the production of chaos and insecurity inside Iran.
According to the database of Habilian Association (terror victims’ family) quoting from Nahrainnet, CIA began the formation of especial operations rooms at its offices in Washington and in Los Angeles, California, and outside the United States to deal with the aftermath of the election campaign for the presidency in Iran to develop practical programs to influence the course of elections events and destabilize the Islamic Republic.
In this regard CIA established crisis rooms in its Iran Chambers in the capitals of several countries, including some Persian Gulf countries like the UAE three months ago. A variety of suggestions about Iran’s presidential elections were sent to these rooms which were in charge of the implementation of the choices made by the specialists about how to deal with the elections in Iran.
One task of these rooms was to investigate the guidelines of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s rivals in order to discover the one whose ideas are most close to the U.S. ideas.
These rooms also worked to bring the theories of the overthrow of Iranian President Ahmadinejad to the reality in Iran.
The next stage in this process was to find the best ways of exploiting the results of the elections and to make the public believe that the organized chaos by the external factors was actually ordered by the losers of the elections and that the losers had organized attacking the facilities and security, economic and media centers and the intensification of sit-ins at universities, plazas and squares and mosques.
The slogan of these special operations rooms was "More gasoline on the firewood" and it was agreed between the experts of the American Central Intelligence Agency and elements of the People’s Mujahedeen Organization to create chaos in the streets and mosques and universities and prepare for a velvet revolution by using a specific color and to lay grounds for the collapse of the Islamic Republic or cause its weakness so as to accept the conditions of America and the West.
This procedure was set up the way if Mr. Ahmadinejad wins the elections, his victory would seem abnormal and a huge propaganda and extensive media hue and cry would show an incredible fraud in the election.

June 22, 2009 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Rajavis cult is biggest loser in Iran election

Now the controversial results of Iran’s presidential election have been announced it is clear who the real losers are: the Rajavis and their cult.

It seems this the first year that we have not had a peep out of Maryam Rajavi before the election. In previous elections it has been customary for her to issue an imperious edict for Iranian people to boycott their elections. And every election time, totally oblivious to the existence of Madame Rajavi let alone her message, Iranians turn up to cast their vote and make their will known – no matter how little it is heeded by the country’s political elite.

This year is no exception. In fact it appears that this year’s presidential election has become so contentious that even more people than ever have voted. Maybe it has become too embarrassing to continually demand a boycott and be, well, ignored.

Maybe it has finally sunk in that, in spite of the obvious flaws (the candidates all have the approval of the Supreme Leader) and the infighting, or maybe because of this un-precedentedly open, vociferous and challenging campaign, the IRI is not on the verge of collapse and that regime change engineered by some kind of drastic internal revolution is not just around the corner ready for her to exploit. This may come as a surprise to Madame Rajavi, but Iranians love their country and are not about to trash it to suit her agenda.

Speaking of her ‘agenda’, Madame Rajavi, knows better than anyone that her only chance to return to her homeland and impose her husband’s cult onto the people of Iran is for the whole ruling system to collapse. She also knows better than anyone else what the subliminal message of this election is; the only way for her to go home is for her cult to continue to pursue its well-trod path of violence and try to remove the ruling regime by force – a course it has pursued without success for nearly thirty years.

Of course, this is what she has believed all the time, in spite of her phony posturing as a campaigner for democracy and human rights to her – let’s be honest – gullible political consumers and her self-serving western backers.

Looking at all the de-listing activity she has engaged in over the past few years I expect that in time Madame Rajavi would have liked to drop the pretence that she heads a peaceful political opposition group and re-invigorate the National Liberation Army of Iran.

Fortunately for the people of Iran this has become impossible as, thanks to the Government of Iraq, this defunct army is now being carefully and thoughtfully dismantled in order to extinguish it as a terrorist entity.

By Anne Singleton

June 14, 2009 0 comments

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