Ultima hora Jihad: Free Syrian Army commander: Mojahedin Khalq terror group is our role model

Syrian rebel commander: Mojahedin Khalq is our role model (aka; MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult)

Free Syrian Army commander: Mojahedin Khalq terror group is our role model

(aka; MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult)

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... A senior Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander described terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, a.k.a. MEK and PMOI) as a role model for him and other Syrian insurgents. “Mujahedin-e Khalq is our role model, and we inform them that our doors are open to them,” Malek al-Kurdi, a deputy commander of the so-called Free Syrian Army, addressed a joint session of MEK and senior figures in the anti-Assad armed rebel groups. His comments come just days after a highly placed security source told Arabic language Ur news agency that hundreds of terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq members have entered the chaos-stricken Syria to ...

(Rajavi cult or MKO aslo known as Saddam's Private Army)

(Rajavi from Saddam to AIPAC)

Hbilian Association, August 11 2012
http://www.habilian.ir/en/News/syrian-rebel-commander-mek-is-our-role-model.html

A senior Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander described terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, a.k.a. MEK and PMOI) as a role model for him and other Syrian insurgents.

“Mujahedin-e Khalq is our role model, and we inform them that our doors are open to them,” Malek al-Kurdi, a deputy commander of the so-called Free Syrian Army, addressed a joint session of MEK and senior figures in the anti-Assad armed rebel groups.

His comments come just days after a highly placed security source told Arabic language Ur news agency that hundreds of terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq members have entered the chaos-stricken Syria to back the so-called Free Syrian Army.

Another senior official with the insurgent group, calling itself the Free Syrian Army, thanked the terrorist MKO group for their support for and solidarity with the armed rebels in Syria.

Late last week, Habilian Association website reported that the elements of the terrorists Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization were working hand-in-hand with armed rebel groups in Syria.

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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=12484

Rajavi cult)

Israel funds terrorist MKO: Investigation

(aka; Mojahedin Khalq, MEK, Rajavi cult)

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... An investigation by the US Treasury Department has indicated that the terrorist anti-Iran Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) is financially sponsored by the Israeli regime or Saudi Arabia. Some US officials suspect that the terrorist group is funded by Israel in return for conducting intelligence-gathering operations inside Iran and assassinating high-profile Iranian targets, including nuclear scientists, British newspaper The Guardian reported on Tuesday. In the latest case of attacks against Iranian nuclear scientists, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was killed after an unknown motorcyclist attached a magnet bomb to his car in Tehran in January 2012 ...

Press TV, May 25 2012
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2012/05/24/242950/israel-funds-terrorist-mko-probe/

An investigation by the US Treasury Department has indicated that the terrorist anti-Iran Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) is financially sponsored by the Israeli regime or Saudi Arabia.

Some US officials suspect that the terrorist group is funded by Israel in return for conducting intelligence-gathering operations inside Iran and assassinating high-profile Iranian targets, including nuclear scientists, British newspaper The Guardian reported on Tuesday.

In the latest case of attacks against Iranian nuclear scientists, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was killed after an unknown motorcyclist attached a magnet bomb to his car in Tehran in January 2012.

The Treasury’s probe has been prompted by the “openness” of the MKO lobbying campaigns in the US Congress and the “large amounts of money” it spends on its activities.

Since the MKO is designated as a terrorist organization under the US law, the probe is intended to find “potential breaches of laws” against financial transactions with proscribed terrorist groups. It also seeks to identify the source of the funds for the pro-MKO campaign in the US Congress.

The anti-Iranian group tries to have its name delisted as a terrorist organization by spending millions of dollars and seeking help from influential security officials in the US, according to a report by Financial Times.

The former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Hugh Shelton, the former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director, Louis Freeh, and the former Attorney General of the United States, Michael Mukasey are among the politicians, who have been singled out by the department for inquiry.

The former Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell has also come under scrutiny as records suggest that he has received USD 160,000 for participating in conferences in support of the MKO in the US, France, Switzerland, and Belgium.

“If you indict me, I hope you know, you have to indict 67 other Americans, who did the same thing, including seven generals,” Rendell has said, protesting against the investigation.

The MKO fled to Iraq in 1986 where it enjoyed the support of the executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and set up its camp, known as Ashraf, near the Iranian border.

The group is also known to have cooperated with Saddam in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and carrying out massacre of Iraqi Kurds.

The terrorist group has as well conducted numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials.

Israel has been funding the MKO for the past two decades in return for the organization’s providing Tel Aviv with intelligence, security and, if required, operational services.

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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=12028

MEK Pays US Officials, But Where Do The Iranian Exiles Get Their Money?

(aka; Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, Rajavi cult)

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... Currently, there are rumors that the Israeli secret service is paying MEK to carry out assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Three unnamed U.S. government officials told NBC news last month that Mossad had trained and paid MEK militants to conduct a spate of car bombings against targets like Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a university chemistry professor who doubled as a director of Iran's Natanz uranium-enrichment facility, who was killed in Tehran in January after two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his Peugeot 405 ...

Daniel Tovrov, IB Times, March 31 2012
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/321488/
20120329/mek-iran-israel-ed-rendell-iraq-money.htm

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Treasury opened investigations into former government officials who have been paid speaking fees by the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian resistance group officially listed as a terrorist organization.

The subpoenaing of former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, ex-FBI Director Louis Freeh and retired Gen. Hugh Shelton has cast an harsh light on other U.S. officials, including former New York City Mayor Rudi Giuliani and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, as well as the organization they publicly support.

"They (MEK) are still on the terrorist list. The laws still apply. It is illegal in every sense of the word to finance them right now," said Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council, a non-partisan community organization based in Washington.

The actual sum being paid to these officials is vague, but judging by the fees handed to certain individuals, the total could be in the millions. For example, Rendell was allegedly paid $150,000 for "seven or eight speeches," according to reports. Giuliani, who spoke in at a conference in Paris, France on behalf of Iranian resistance figures alongside 18 other international guests, has been known to charge up to $100,000 for a single appearance and sometimes demands private jets to charter him to appearances.

Other former U.S. officials told the New York Times that the American supporters of MEK received between $15,000 and $30,000 per speech, yet others said they made appearances for free.

Where does an organization based in an Iraqi refugee camp for the last 25 years get so much money? While MEK has organized rallies and campaigns to have it delisted as a terrorist group in the past, it has never, by all accounts, spent the amount of money it has over the past year.

Currently, there are rumors that the Israeli secret service is paying MEK to carry out assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Three unnamed U.S. government officials told NBC news last month that Mossad had trained and paid MEK militants to conduct a spate of car bombings against targets like Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a university chemistry professor who doubled as a director of Iran's Natanz uranium-enrichment facility, who was killed in Tehran in January after two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his Peugeot 405.

MEK called the allegations "outright false," but Israel has neither denied nor confirmed its own involvement in the attack.

If the NBC report is true, Israel would not be the first government to pay for MEK's military expertise; from 1980 until the invasion of Iraq in 2003, MEK was funded by Saddam Hussein. Following the adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," MEK joined Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War and fought viciously against the Ayatollah's forces. MEK made Camp Ashraf, which is about 55 miles north of Baghdad, its permanent headquarters in 1986.

Some estimate that Hussein was paying as much as $30 million a month for at least 10 months -- some of it allegedly run-off from the UN's failed Oil-for-Food program -- for MEK's services, which included strikes against Kurdish and Shia rebels in Iraq.

Additionally, during the Iran-Iraq War, MEK leader Masoud Rajavi -- whose wife Maryam Rajavi currently runs the National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI, MEK's political arm -- allegedly took control of all of his members' assets, possessions and even their passports so they couldn't leave Camp Ashraf.

"Between 1978, when I became MEK's supporter, till 1996 when I escaped, through use of different techniques of mind manipulation I was forced to give them whatever they asked me," explained Masoud Banisadr, MEK's former U.S. spokesperson and the second cousin of Abolhassan Banisadr, the first president of the Islamic Republic.

"First any capital or material things we had; then any love, attachments or relation we had with our country, our family and friends in Iran; then when they asked all members to divorce their spouses, I lost the love of my life, my dear wife and could not see my children for almost six years; I lost part of my health, and many times were on the edge of dying for them."

In 2003, before the European Union took MEK off of its terror watch list, Maryam Rajavi and some 160 other Mujahedin were arrested by counter-terrorism police in a small town outside Paris. Authorities confiscated around $8 million in cash, which Trita Parsi believes was some of the last remaining funds of Saddam Hussein. All of the suspects were quickly released and the case was eventually dropped.

Follow the Money

MEK was put on the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in 1997. MEK supporters suggest this was a failed political move by the Clinton administration to soften relations with Tehran. Regardless, the organization says it is now a peaceful and democratic resistance movement, one allied with the U.S in its distrust of the current Iranian regime and Iran's nuclear program. A slew of American officials, including Freeh, FBI Director at the time the terror list designation was made, and a number of military officers of the highest rank, have come to the support of MEK and lobbied for its removal from the terrorist list.

A 2004 FBI investigation uncovered a glut of shady fund-raising operations. According to the report, the voracity of which has been called into question, money raised by the Los Angeles and Washington D.C. "cells" was "transferred overseas through a complex international money laundering operation that uses accounts in Turkey, Germany, France, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates."

At one point, MEK was also operating charities called the Committee for Human Rights and Iran Aid, which claimed to raise money for Iranian refugees persecuted by the Islamic regime, but was later revealed to be a front for MEK's military arm, the National Liberation Army.

All of this could account for some of MEK's resources but would be unlikely to cover the exorbitant speaker fees recently doled out.

Moreover, MEK supporters would claim that if true, these practices were done during a previous incarnation of the group, the middle ground between being a fully-militant organization and a refugee group under U.S. military protection in Iraq.

Almost all of the former U.S. officials who support delisting were not actually paid by MEK, but by Iranian-American cultural organizations like the Iranian American Community of North Texas and the Iranian American Cultural Association of Missouri. This network of non-profits could be the best way to track MEK's funding. According to experts, money from benefactors and pledge drives in Europe is sent to individuals in the United States, then onto front groups and finally given to American politicians. It's complicated, but according to federal law, it's still illegal.

"It's much easier to move around money in Europe because MEK is no longer on the watch list," said Parsi.

None of this may matter soon. MEK has filed a federal suit that would force the State Department, which says it continually evaluates the terrorist organization list anyway, to officially review the organization's status within 30 days.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also said that a successful transfer from Camp Ashraf to former U.S. military base Camp Liberty, which is currently underway, will help speed up any potential delisting. If that happens, former politicians like Giuliani, ex-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former U.N. ambassador John Bolton will continue to advocate for the MEK despite criticism and possible legal ramifications.

--------lso
http://iran-interlink.org/index.php?mod=view&id=12065

Our Men in Iran?

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... Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated since 2007. M.E.K. spokesmen have denied any involvement in the killings, but early last month NBC News quoted two senior Obama Administration officials as confirming that the attacks were carried out by M.E.K. units that were financed and trained by Mossad, the Israeli secret service. NBC further quoted the Administration officials as denying any American involvement in the M.E.K. activities. The former senior intelligence official I spoke with seconded the NBC report that the Israelis were working with the M.E.K., adding ...

(Rajavi cult or MKO aslo known as Saddam's Private Army)

Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, April 6 2012
http://www.newyorker.com/online/
blogs/newsdesk/2012/04/mek.html

From the air, the terrain of the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, with its arid high plains and remote mountain peaks, has the look of northwest Iran. The site, some sixty-five miles northwest of Las Vegas, was once used for nuclear testing, and now includes a counterintelligence training facility and a private airport capable of handling Boeing 737 aircraft. It’s a restricted area, and inhospitable—in certain sections, the curious are warned that the site’s security personnel are authorized to use deadly force, if necessary, against intruders.

It was here that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. The M.E.K. had its beginnings as a Marxist-Islamist student-led group and, in the nineteen-seventies, it was linked to the assassination of six American citizens. It was initially part of the broad-based revolution that led to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran. But, within a few years, the group was waging a bloody internal war with the ruling clerics, and, in 1997, it was listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. In 2002, the M.E.K. earned some international credibility by publicly revealing—accurately—that Iran had begun enriching uranium at a secret underground location. Mohamed ElBaradei, who at the time was the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear monitoring agency, told me later that he had been informed that the information was supplied by the Mossad. The M.E.K.’s ties with Western intelligence deepened after the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003, and JSOC began operating inside Iran in an effort to substantiate the Bush Administration’s fears that Iran was building the bomb at one or more secret underground locations. Funds were covertly passed to a number of dissident organizations, for intelligence collection and, ultimately, for anti-regime terrorist activities. Directly, or indirectly, the M.E.K. ended up with resources like arms and intelligence. Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants.

Despite the growing ties, and a much-intensified lobbying effort organized by its advocates, M.E.K. has remained on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations—which meant that secrecy was essential in the Nevada training. “We did train them here, and washed them through the Energy Department because the D.O.E. owns all this land in southern Nevada,” a former senior American intelligence official told me. “We were deploying them over long distances in the desert and mountains, and building their capacity in communications—coördinating commo is a big deal.” (A spokesman for J.S.O.C. said that “U.S. Special Operations Forces were neither aware of nor involved in the training of M.E.K. members.”)

The training ended sometime before President Obama took office, the former official said. In a separate interview, a retired four-star general, who has advised the Bush and Obama Administrations on national-security issues, said that he had been privately briefed in 2005 about the training of Iranians associated with the M.E.K. in Nevada by an American involved in the program. They got “the standard training,” he said, “in commo, crypto [cryptography], small-unit tactics, and weaponry—that went on for six months,” the retired general said. “They were kept in little pods.” He also was told, he said, that the men doing the training were from JSOC, which, by 2005, had become a major instrument in the Bush Administration’s global war on terror. “The JSOC trainers were not front-line guys who had been in the field, but second- and third-tier guys—trainers and the like—and they started going off the reservation. ‘If we’re going to teach you tactics, let me show you some really sexy stuff…’ ”

It was the ad-hoc training that provoked the worried telephone calls to him, the former general said. “I told one of the guys who called me that they were all in over their heads, and all of them could end up trouble unless they got something in writing. The Iranians are very, very good at counterintelligence, and stuff like this is just too hard to contain.” The site in Nevada was being utilized at the same time, he said, for advanced training of élite Iraqi combat units. (The retired general said he only knew of the one M.E.K.-affiliated group that went though the training course; the former senior intelligence official said that he was aware of training that went on through 2007.)

Allan Gerson, a Washington attorney for the M.E.K., notes that the M.E.K. has publicly and repeatedly renounced terror. Gerson said he would not comment on the alleged training in Nevada. But such training, if true, he said, would be “especially incongruent with the State Department’s decision to continue to maintain the M.E.K. on the terrorist list. How can the U.S. train those on State’s foreign terrorist list, when others face criminal penalties for providing a nickel to the same organization?”

Robert Baer, a retired C.I.A. agent who is fluent in Arabic and had worked under cover in Kurdistan and throughout the Middle East in his career, initially had told me in early 2004 of being recruited by a private American company—working, so he believed, on behalf of the Bush Administration—to return to Iraq. “They wanted me to help the M.E.K. collect intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program,” Baer recalled. “They thought I knew Farsi, which I did not. I said I’d get back to them, but never did.” Baer, now living in California, recalled that it was made clear to him at the time that the operation was “a long-term thing—not just a one-shot deal.”

Massoud Khodabandeh, an I.T. expert now living in England who consults for the Iraqi government, was an official with the M.E.K. before defecting in 1996. In a telephone interview, he acknowledged that he is an avowed enemy of the M.E.K., and has advocated against the group. Khodabandeh said that he had been with the group since before the fall of the Shah and, as a computer expert, was deeply involved in intelligence activities as well as providing security for the M.E.K. leadership. For the past decade, he and his English wife have run a support program for other defectors. Khodabandeh told me that he had heard from more recent defectors about the training in Nevada. He was told that the communications training in Nevada involved more than teaching how to keep in contact during attacks—it also involved communication intercepts. The United States, he said, at one point found a way to penetrate some major Iranian communications systems. At the time, he said, the U.S. provided M.E.K. operatives with the ability to intercept telephone calls and text messages inside Iran—which M.E.K. operatives translated and shared with American signals intelligence experts. He does not know whether this activity is ongoing.

Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated since 2007. M.E.K. spokesmen have denied any involvement in the killings, but early last month NBC News quoted two senior Obama Administration officials as confirming that the attacks were carried out by M.E.K. units that were financed and trained by Mossad, the Israeli secret service. NBC further quoted the Administration officials as denying any American involvement in the M.E.K. activities. The former senior intelligence official I spoke with seconded the NBC report that the Israelis were working with the M.E.K., adding that the operations benefitted from American intelligence. He said that the targets were not “Einsteins”; “The goal is to affect Iranian psychology and morale,” he said, and to “demoralize the whole system—nuclear delivery vehicles, nuclear enrichment facilities, power plants.” Attacks have also been carried out on pipelines. He added that the operations are “primarily being done by M.E.K. through liaison with the Israelis, but the United States is now providing the intelligence.” An adviser to the special-operations community told me that the links between the United States and M.E.K. activities inside Iran had been long-standing. “Everything being done inside Iran now is being done with surrogates,” he said.

The sources I spoke to were unable to say whether the people trained in Nevada were now involved in operations in Iran or elsewhere. But they pointed to the general benefit of American support. “The M.E.K. was a total joke,” the senior Pentagon consultant said, “and now it’s a real network inside Iran. How did the M.E.K. get so much more efficient?” he asked rhetorically. “Part of it is the training in Nevada. Part of it is logistical support in Kurdistan, and part of it is inside Iran. M.E.K. now has a capacity for efficient operations than it never had before.”

In mid-January, a few days after an assassination by car bomb of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, at a town-hall meeting of soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas, acknowledged that the U.S. government has “some ideas as to who might be involved, but we don’t know exactly who was involved.” He added, “But I can tell you one thing: the United States was not involved in that kind of effort. That’s not what the United States does.”

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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11978

Secretary Clinton trapped by a false dichotomy

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... the world is genuinely working toward a peaceful end to the camp and the release and resettlement of the hostages, it appears Secretary of State Clinton is somewhat ambiguous in her dealing with the situation. Based on a legal ruling, Clinton must make a decision by the end of March whether the State Department remove the MEK from its terrorism list or not. Presenting this as leverage she has introduced a unilateral condition to the MEK’s removal from Iraq; if the MEK cooperate with UNAMI and the Government of Iraq, she has indicated, we will remove them from the US terrorism list. But cooperation with UNAMI is a legal obligation rather than an optional choice for the MEK ...

massoud khodabandeh , Iranian.com, March 20 2012
http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/massoud-
khodabandeh/secretary-clinton-trapped-false-dichotomy

Persian text

In November 2011 a large group of interested people met in Baghdad to discuss the seemingly intractable problem of how to dismantle the Mohjahedin-e Khalq foreign terrorist group and remove the members from the country. At the behest of families of the individuals trapped inside Camp Ashraf, the GOI agreed to proceed in a way that would avoid violent confrontation. Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari announced later, “We will refuse them the satisfaction of becoming martyrs on our soil”. The Governor of Diyala, the military head of Diyala province and other authorities all went the extra mile to prevent the MEK from killing more hostages and blaming the Iraqis for it.

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UN which would allow more time and give oversight of the eviction process to the UN and to representatives of the EU and US.

The Iraqis have kept their side of bargain – the deadline for the MEK’s departure was extended and negotiations were facilitated to persuade the MEK to cooperate in a move from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty where the UNHCR would be able to assess each individual for refugee status. (Remember that no external body, including the GOI, has been able to freely access the inside of Camp Ashraf since the fall of Saddam Hussein.) The first 800 individuals have now moved and another 800 are lined up to move over the next few days in two groups of 400. The MEK leader has not been able to exploit the situation and kill any hostages. The GOI has control of the situation.

UNAMI has been rigorous in its supervision of the move and, by enforcing its own rules and regulations has not allowed propaganda to overshadow activities at either camp. Facilities at the new camp were approved by UN inspectors, the ICRC has been involved and behind the scene EU and US special advisors have been keeping a watchful eye on events. The MEK has ‘character assassinated’ UNAMI and its officials, and others, in the media but UNAMI has not been diverted by the efforts of the MEK and their backers.

But one pernicious factor which has actively impeded proper progress in this task has been the support given to the MEK by Israelis and US Neoconservatives whose clear intent is to politicise what is essentially a humanitarian situation. The MEK is a well-honed tool in the hands of these ideologues and is used to incite hatred against Iran and Iraq among ignorant and lazy political communities. The MEK is far too valuable for them to allow it to disappear. Most recently, the MEK has been used by Mossad to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists.

This being so will make it even more difficult for UNAMI to transfer them to third countries. This ruthless use of the MEK as a mercenary terrorist force has a direct impact on the situation of the hostages trapped in the camp; their future becomes all the more uncertain.

But then, it has been all along, the clear intention of the MEK’s paymasters to keep the MEK intact as a terrorist entity in Iraq, in total disregard for the human beings involved.

If it wasn’t because of the backing of Israel and the Neoconservatives, Rajavi would have had no choice but to open the doors of his closed totalitarian group and allow the individuals trapped inside to walk free. That is the aim of everyone on the ground working to resolve the situation in Iraq. In this respect it is no less the responsibility of the US Government to work with the international community to dismantle this terrorist group and rescue the hostages.

But while the rest of the world is genuinely working toward a peaceful end to the camp and the release and resettlement of the hostages, it appears Secretary of State Clinton is somewhat ambiguous in her dealing with the situation.

Based on a legal ruling, Clinton must make a decision by the end of March whether the State Department remove the MEK from its terrorism list or not. Presenting this as leverage she has introduced a unilateral condition to the MEK’s removal from Iraq; if the MEK cooperate with UNAMI and the Government of Iraq, she has indicated, we will remove them from the US terrorism list. But cooperation with UNAMI is a legal obligation rather than an optional choice for the MEK. So what is really behind this position?

On the surface this would appear as though the USG is prepared to do a political deal to get the MEK to leave Iraq (and in doing so gain credit with the Iraqi government). It is as though the MEK were a far distant uncontrollable threat to US security which needs careful handling to bring it under control before dismantling it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everything that the MEK’s western owners can do is being done to help the MEK’s leader keep the doors to the camp closed, to keep the hostages inside and to deny them contact with their families – even though this is against all humanitarian, moral or indeed criminal law.

By talking about the terrorism list rather than talking about what is happening in Iraq Clinton is bowing to this pressure. Certainly if UNAMI is allowed to do its job properly – with the support of all the international community – there will not be an organisation left to be listed or not listed. By invoking the US terrorism list, the actual script appears to be whether the MEK can be more useful listed as terrorists or if they are not regarded as terrorists. This false choice disguises the real intent of its proponents which is to keep the group intact as a terrorist group so it can be rearmed and used.

Secretary Clinton, indeed the whole government of America, needs to unhitch the politically charged consideration of the MEK’s inclusion in the US terrorism list from the very real humanitarian situation in Iraq. If the USG’s intention is really to deal properly with this terrorist group, it should reassert the humanitarian focus of American policy toward the MEK and unequivocally support the dismantlement process in Iraq.

Persian text

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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=12839

Gingrich railed against the Iranian hostage crisis, but the MEK actually participated in that

(Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, Rajavi cult)

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... the State Department says the MEK participated in hostage crisis. The MEK is also said to have praised the 9/11 attacks when they occurred in 2001.The hypocrisy of pro-MEK shills like Gingrich is stark. It was only a matter of years ago that Gingrich’s own party, making the case for a war in Iraq which he also supported, claimed Saddam’s support for the MEK “terrorist” group justified the US invasion.“Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO),” read the Bush administration document, “which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several US military personnel and US civilians.” ...

(Rajavi from Saddam to AIPAC)

John Glaser, Anti War, July 04, 2012
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/07/02/gingrich
-gives-speech-to-iranian-terrorist-group-mek/

At a rally in Paris last Sunday, former Republican presidential candidate and House Speaker Newt Gingrich spoke on behalf of the Mujahadin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group considered a terrorist organization by the US State Department.

“This is a massive, world-wide movement for liberty in Iran,” Gingrich said, in a short speechposted on YouTube. “And not anything like the State Department’s descriptions.”

The push to get the group removed from the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, presumably to make it eligible for US funding to undermine the Iranian government, ignores the fact that the MEK engage in violence to this day.

MEK fighters have been secretly trained by the US in recent years and is now being employed by Israel to conduct acts of terrorism inside Iran. To US officials in Washington though, any group that happens to oppose their enemy, Iran, are freedom fighters.

The MEK has received years of praise and advocacy from elite members in American politics, from former Governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell to former UN Ambassador John Bolton to former Governor of Vermont Howard Dean and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. These types of people collected payments from the MEK for their advocacy to get the group removed from the State Deparment’s list, which amounts to “material support” for terrorist groups, a felony.

Embarrassingly, Gingrich railed against the Iranian regime for the Iranian hostage crisis, where hundreds of US citizens were taken hostage at the Iranian embassy following the 1979 revolution, not knowing that the State Department says the MEK participated in it. The MEK is also said to have praised the 9/11 attacks when they occurred in 2001.

The hypocrisy of pro-MEK shills like Gingrich is stark. It was only a matter of years ago that Gingrich’s own party, making the case for a war in Iraq which he also supported, claimed Saddam’s support for the MEK “terrorist” group justified the US invasion.

“Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO),” read the Bush administration document, “which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several US military personnel and US civilians.”

(Washington backed Maryam Rajavi in terrorist cult's HQ in Paris)

Daniel Zucker, Maryam Rajavi and ALi Safavi

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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=12126

An Iranian mystery: Just who are the MEK?

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... Ex-MEK member Eduard Termado is now living in Germany. His face is scarred to the point of being misshapen. His complexion is grey, his skin blotched and waxy, and his forehead constantly covered in dribbling beads of sweat - but then he spent nine years as a prisoner of war in Iraq. He joined the MEK hoping to help Iranian democracy and did not like what he saw. He says that after three years he asked to leave, but was told he couldn't. He stayed for 12 years. He now says joining the MEK was the biggest mistake of his life and he has expressed that feeling in an unusual way. He has married and produced three children. "My family is my protest against the MEK," he says ...

Owen Bennett Jones, BBC, April 15 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17615065

The MEK forced its members to divorce

How do you get a group described by the US government as a cult and an officially designated foreign terrorist organisation to be viewed by many congressmen and parliamentarians as champions of human rights and secular democracy?

It would challenge even the most talented PR executive.

The starkly differing perceptions of the MEK or People's Mujahideen of Iran could be a case study in the power of image management - of what can be achieved not with guns but by the way information is disseminated.

The organisation has a history of ideological and tactical flexibility.

Since the 1970s, its rhetoric has changed from Islamist to secular; from socialist to capitalist; from pro-Iranian-revolution to anti-Iranian-revolution; from pro-Saddam to pro-American; from violent to peaceful.

And there is another dichotomy - it has admiring supporters and ardent critics.

Take, for example, the US military officers who had to deal with the MEK after they invaded Iraq in 2003.

Not only was the MEK heavily armed and designated as terrorist by the US government, it also had some very striking internal social policies.

For example, it required its members in Iraq to divorce. Why? Because love was distracting them from their struggle against the mullahs in Iran.

And the trouble is that people love their children too.

So the MEK leadership asked its members to send their children away to foster families in Europe. Europe would be safer, the group explained.

Some parents have not seen their children for 20 years and more.

And just to add to the mix, former members consistently describe participating in regular public confessions of their sexual fantasies.

You might think that would set alarm bells ringing - and for some US officers it did.

One colonel I spoke to, who had daily contact with the MEK leadership for six months in 2004, said that the organisation was a cult, and that some of the members who wanted to get out had to run away.

And yet another officer, who was there at precisely the same time and is now a retired general, has become an active lobbyist on the MEK's behalf.

With his open smile and earnest friendly manner, he is a good advocate. "Cult? How about admirably focused group?" he says. "And I never heard of anyone being held against their will."

We later emailed him about a former member who claimed to have told the general to his face that people were held against their will. "He's lying," the general replied.

You just have to decide which side to believe.

Ex-MEK member Eduard Termado is now living in Germany.

His face is scarred to the point of being misshapen. His complexion is grey, his skin blotched and waxy, and his forehead constantly covered in dribbling beads of sweat - but then he spent nine years as a prisoner of war in Iraq.

He joined the MEK hoping to help Iranian democracy and did not like what he saw.

He says that after three years he asked to leave, but was told he couldn't. He stayed for 12 years.

He now says joining the MEK was the biggest mistake of his life and he has expressed that feeling in an unusual way.

He has married and produced three children. "My family is my protest against the MEK," he says.

There are many other stories.

Children who never forgave their parents for abandoning them. Children who did forgive and are now joyously reunited. Divorcees who have got out of the organisation saying they still love their former spouses who are still in.

In over 25 years of reporting, I have been lied to often enough but, as successive former MEK members told what they had been through, their tears seemed real enough to me.

And yet a significant number of politicians in the US and UK would say I was tricked because the former MEK members who spread these kind of stories are, in fact, Iranian agents.

Again, who to believe?

In the US in particular, an impressive array of public figures have spoken in defence of the MEK.

There are more than 30 big names - people like Rudy Giuliani former mayor of New York, Howard Dean at one time the democratic presidential hopeful, a retired governor, a former head of the FBI.

Many get paid. Of those who have declared their earnings, the going rate for a pro-MEK speech seems to be $20,000 (£12,500) for 10 minutes. But then many other prominent MEK supporters act without payment.

Why do people take such strong positions on the MEK?

After a month talking to people on both sides of the argument, I am left thinking this. Some supporters are paid, others see the MEK through the prism of Iran - they will just support anything that offers hope of change there. Many are well motivated but some are naive.

And the former members?

Some are embittered, others just seem broken.

Which is when it occurred to me - the perception people have of the MEK may say more about them than about the organisation itself.

It is so difficult to pin down you can see your own reflection in it.

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Also
http://camp-ashraf.com

The Life of Camp Ashraf,
Mojahedin-e Khalq Victims of Many Masters

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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/index.php?mod=view&id=12095

The Strange World of the People's Mujahedin

(aka; MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult)

.

... Whether they leave voluntarily, or by force, leave they must. The PMOI has a history of killing Americans and mounting attacks within Iran. But it now says it has renounced violence and should be removed from America's list of designated foreign terrorist organisations. Its high profile PR campaign involves paying senior retired US officials who then speak on its behalf. We report on the way in which a former pariah group accused of killing Americans has won over intelligence experts, generals, and congressmen from both sides of the political divide...

Owen Bennett Jones, BBC World Service, April 11 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00q88z2/Your_World
_The_Strange_World_of_the_Peoples_Mujahedin/

Link to the Audio file (BBC)

Link to download the file:

http://www.4shared.com/mp3/
vamWLrxf/MPSH0011212.html

The People's Mujahedin of Iran - a group of dissident Iranians who have been fighting to topple the Mullahs since the 1980s - say they fear they are about to be massacred.

Over 3,000 PMOI members – designated terrorists by the US and a cult by some former members - live in Iraq at Camp Ashraf, 40 miles north of Baghdad and 70 miles from Iran itself.

The camp residents say they are vulnerable because with the US now having left Iraq, they are at the mercy of the pro-Iranian, Iraqi government, which is demanding the camp be closed down.

Whether they leave voluntarily, or by force, leave they must.

The PMOI has a history of killing Americans and mounting attacks within Iran.

But it now says it has renounced violence and should be removed from America's list of designated foreign terrorist organisations.

Its high profile PR campaign involves paying senior retired US officials who then speak on its behalf.

We report on the way in which a former pariah group accused of killing Americans has won over intelligence experts, generals, and congressmen from both sides of the political divide.

As the deadline for the closing of Camp Ashraf draws near we ask just who are the People's Mujahedin of Iran - terrorists or freedom fighters?

A cult or a deeply committed army who could be used by the US to fight for change in Iran

Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11069

Diyala Governor: Human Rights, Deporting MEK, Imposing the Laws, non negotiable

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... Massoud Khodabandeh heading the delegation thanked the Government of Iraq and asked the Governor of Diyala and the General to help inform the people trapped inside about their rights and to counter the lies given to them by the hostage takers and cult leaders. Ms Abdollahi on beuhalf of the families asked for help and for care to be taken when dismantling the camp to institute particular safeguards to protect the relatives of the picketing families. Ms Sanjabi, (formerly a member of the MEK Leadership Council), who managed to escape some months ago, explained ...

Iran Interlink, Diyala, Iraq, November 23 2011
http://iran-interlink.org

A meeting was held on Monday 21 November between officials of the Diyala province and family representatives of the people trapped in Camp Ashraf.

The Governor of Diyala, Dr Abdul–Nasser Al-Mahdwe stated clearly that:

1- There will be no compromise on the decision to deport the MEK.

2 - There will be no compromise on imposing national and international laws

3 - There will be no compromise on respect for human rights laws and agreements and therefore they will not be forcefully returned to Iran.

He said that the overall decisions will rest with central government but as far as Diyala is concerned there is no room for the MKO anywhere inside the province. This has been announced repeatedly by practically all the leaders of tribes and local officials. Dr Al-Mahdwe dismissed completely the MEK propaganda in which they claim they have some support and said that to claim, after what they have done, that the MEK have even a small percentage of support in the province is simply a lie and is purely fictitious.

General Abdol Amir Al-Zeidi, is the commander of the regional army and responsible for the protection of the camp. He said that he has met many escapees from the camp. The last one was a woman who had to drag herself out and crawl for about half a kilometer before reaching the Iraqis. He said the leaders are the problem not the trapped people and if given order we are prepared to transfer them out of the camp with the utmost dignity and care and respect for their wellbeing. He said this can be checked by reporters and human rights organisation who wish to observe the operation.

The General said that in the event they receive the order to evacuate the camp, they will try their utmost to stop the leaders killing the hostages and the disaffected members as they did before. According to the General most of the people who were killed in April 2011 were in opposition to the leadership and had been shot in the heart or in the head. But the leaders tried to cover up such facts even though the evidence is unequivocal. He said reports will be handed over to the authorities to deal with the cases of murder of these people at the hands of the hostage takers.

Massoud Khodabandeh heading the delegation thanked the Government of Iraq and asked the Governor of Diyala and the General to help inform the people trapped inside about their rights and to counter the lies given to them by the hostage takers and cult leaders.

Ms Abdollahi on behalf of the families asked for help and for care to be taken when dismantling the camp to institute particular safeguards to protect the relatives of the picketing families.

Ms Sanjabi, (formerly a member of the MEK Leadership Council), who managed to escape some months ago, explained the latest developments inside the camp and gave some ideas about how the leaders may try to plan and execute violent resistance.

Mr and Mrs Mohammady from Canada who have been trying since before 2003 to rescue their daughter from the camp, presented some documents including copies of the arrest warrants for some leading members of the MKO inside the camp which the General received and promised to follow up.

Other delegation members including Mr. Azizi a Human rights activist from Netherlands Mr Sadeghi, one of the few people who managed to escaped from the camp during the time of Saddam Hussein, Mr Ghashghavi who spent years in Abu Ghraib, where he was sent by Rajavi, Mr. Ferydouni who managed to escape a few weeks ago and Ms Mahdian whose husband, a registered POW, is trapped inside the camp also participated in the meeting.

Press and media were present and the Governor and the General gave a media briefing following the meeting which was broadcast live through official and national media.