Washington — AS TENSIONS between the U.S. and Iran continue to mount, an Iranian exile group viewed here as a terrorist organization is lobbying to play a greater role in the struggle against Tehran. And it is winning some support in Congress.

The Mujahedin-e Khalq, also known as the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, was first blacklisted by the State Department in June 1994. Various front organizations, including the National Council of the Iranian Resistance, were added to the U.S. blacklist in 1997.
While the blacklisting has prohibited the group from openly lobbying Congress, a variety of like-minded organizations have championed its cause, claiming to have no operational ties to the banned terrorist group.

As expected the terrorist Mojahedin-e-Khalq showed a knee-jerk reaction to Mahan Abedin’s interview with Masoud Banisadr at iranefshagar website.
Here is Mr. Abedin’s comment on the MEK reaction:
There can be no dialogue with people who reduce everything to such slanderous and libellous gesture politics! FYI Masoud Banisadr translated the unedited version of the interview into Persian and displayed it on his website

On Tuesday, May 16th the tenth meeting of Nejat Society Isfahan Branch was held on the occasion of the return of Siamak Hatami, a defector of MeK, to Iran.

National Council of Resistance and a host of U.S.-based “Iranian-American community” groups, and pretends to support democratic ideals. But make no mistake. The Mujahedin murdered Americans in the 1970s, took part in the Khomeinist revolution, helped the regime seize the U.S. embassy and take U.S. diplomats hostage in 1979, …In fact, the 500-or so front groups that belong to this “coalition” are just MEK fronts –and some of them just individuals – not independent groups. ..

The MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq) is organizing major conferences in Paris and in Washington, DC in the coming week, in an effort to shore up support for the group among European and American law-makers. In recent years, the MEK has shifted its rhetoric, abandoning earlier statements,…

Germany has reaffirmed the terrorist status of the MKO grouplet in its 2005 terror report released by the German domestic intelligence service Verfassungsschutz on Monday.

Some Iranian detainees at this facility near Baghdad have applied for asylum. UNHCR has been requested to verify their status and pursue solutions for those who qualify as refugees. Due to lack of access to Ashraf by humanitarian agencies, UNHCR has piloted the first Refugee Status Determination interviews using video tele-conferencing facilities.