Speaker Lambasts UNSC Silence on Assassination of Iranian Scientists
(By Washington backed Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult)
.
... Reports said that the terrorist attacks on Iran's scientists were joint operations by Israeli spy agents and the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO). The NBC News said in a report in February that Mossad has financed and trained the MKO to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. Two senior US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to the NBC News that the MKO was to blame for the series of assassinations against Iranian nuclear scientists. "All your inclinations are correct," said one of the officials while speaking about the group's role in the assassinations and Tel Aviv's support for the group ...
(Maryam Rajavi directly ordered the massacre of Kurdish people)
(Washington backed Maryam Rajavi in terrorist cult's HQ in Paris)
Fars News, Tehran, May 02 2012
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9102110004
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani lashed out at the UN Security Council for keeping mum about the assassination of Iranian scientists by the Zionist regime of Israel.
"The Security Council which is so watchful (of world events) didn't even frown at the Zionist regime (for the assassination of the Iranian scientists)," Larijani said in Tehran on Monday, blasting the silence shown by the international bodies on Tel Aviv's terror attacks against the lives of Iranian nationals and elites and implying that the world body is under the influence of the Zionist regime of Israel.
He reminded that the Iranian scientists were assassinated in blatant violation of all international laws, and said the measure is an inhumane and inhuman act carried out merely for the sake of grudge.
Meantime, he played down the boastful remarks uttered by Israeli officials about the assassination of Iranian scientists to buy themselves credit, saying that killing a person is not so much complicated a task and only proves a regime's lack of moral values.
In the fifth attack of its kind in two years, Israeli agents assassinated a 32-year-old Iranian scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, and his driver on January 11, 2012.
The blast took place on the second anniversary of the martyrdom of Iranian university professor and nuclear scientist, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, who was also assassinated in a terrorist bomb attack in Tehran in January 2010.
The assassination method used in the bombing was similar to the 2010 terrorist bomb attacks against the then university professor, Fereidoun Abbassi Davani - who is now the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization - and his colleague Majid Shahriari. While Abbasi Davani survived the attack, Shahriari was martyred.
Another Iranian scientist, Dariush Rezaeinejad, was also assassinated through the same method on 23 July 2011.
Reports said that the terrorist attacks on Iran's scientists were joint operations by Israeli spy agents and the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).
The NBC News said in a report in February that Mossad has financed and trained the MKO to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists.
Two senior US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to the NBC News that the MKO was to blame for the series of assassinations against Iranian nuclear scientists.
"All your inclinations are correct," said one of the officials while speaking about the group's role in the assassinations and Tel Aviv's support for the group.
The US officials said the US government was aware of the assassination campaign.
----------
Also
http://iran-interlink.org/index.php?mod=view&id=12241
If you liked the USS LIBERTY, the Lavon Affair, and the 5 dancing Israelis on 9/11, you’re simply going to LOVE the MeK
(aka; Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, Rajavi cult)
,
... The group in question is the Mujahedin e Khalq, (MeK) designated by the government of Uncle Sam to be a terrorist organization since the early 1990s. An Iranian exile group, it received ‘honorable mention’ as a FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization) by the USGOV not only because as a group it murdered in cold blood as many as 17,000 fellow Iranians, but several Americans as well. In its repertoire of political violence, the MeK is credited with blowing up schools, mosques, churches, libraries, government buildings and various market places, in addition to the various ‘personalized’ assassinations it has performed, including ...
Mark Glenn, The ugly truth, April 29 2012
http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2012/04/26
/if-you-liked-the-uss-liberty-the-lavon-affair-and-the
-5-dancing-israelis-on-911-youre-simply-going-to-love-the-mek/
Given the current climate in America, where all political creatures—both small and great—bear that infamous ‘mark’ indicating their 100% bona fides as hired guns for the Jewish state, it can only mean one thing when suddenly lots of them are found chorus-lining a cause whose sole beneficiary happens to be that same aforementioned ethno-theocratic enclave that has never considered America’s best interests to be anything of a priority…
…bad weather’s a comin’…
Remember, (as if we could forget) this is the same gang that schmoozed the American people into sending their sons and daughters off to fight and die in a needless (and illegal) war against Iraq that’s killed millions, destroyed the American economy and—following a close 2nd after Israel–made the United States the most-hated country on the planet…The same gang that justifies the $30 million a day the Jewish state receives in US taxpayer money (separation of church and state anyone???) on the basis that it’s ‘an investment in American security’…
And, of course, the same gang that told (tells) us with a straight face that the 9/11 attacks had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with America’s blind and unyielding support for that ethno-theocratic enclave who gets her kicks by perpetrating serial violence against those unfortunate enough to be living in close proximity to her, but rather because ‘DEM MOOZLEMS’ hate us for ‘our freedoms’…
With such a history then, no one should be particularly surprised when self-proven criminals position themselves for even more morally-obnoxious behavior.
After all, at the end of the day, that’s the way it is with ‘bad eggs’…Their behavior is a cancer of sorts that can neither stay put nor be self-contained, and must instead be constantly oozing into new cracks and crevices where it’s never gone before and where propriety forbids it.
And likewise with this ‘new and improved’ evil and the bad weather it portends, namely the current move by some politically-well-connected schmuckity-mucks to get an infamously-known terrorist organization reclassified in such a way that it’s then free to do what it does best, which is—surprise, surprise–perpetuating terrorism.
The group in question is the Mujahedin e Khalq, (MeK) designated by the government of Uncle Sam to be a terrorist organization since the early 1990s. An Iranian exile group, it received ‘honorable mention’ as a FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization) by the USGOV not only because as a group it murdered in cold blood as many as 17,000 fellow Iranians, but several Americans as well.
In its repertoire of political violence, the MeK is credited with blowing up schools, mosques, churches, libraries, government buildings and various market places, in addition to the various ‘personalized’ assassinations it has performed, including (as assumed by those ‘in the know’) the 5 Iranian nuclear scientists murdered in recent years.
As such, the MeK being duly listed as an FTO by the USGOV means that receiving money from or advocating on behalf of this group is a federal offense, punishable by fine and/or imprisonment, just as it would be (and has been) for individuals convicted of providing ‘material support’ for other FTOs such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, etc.
And now, in underscoring just what a truly bizarro world we find ourselves living in, we have a whole gaggle of individuals—high profile ones at that–engaging in what can only be termed very open, blatant and in-your-face violation of this criminal statute, getting paid very handsomely in the process and without (as of this moment) so much as a polite tap on the shoulder from the long arm of US law enforcement…
And when we say ‘high profile’ we mean as high as an elephant’s ear, a short list of which includes—
–Former New York City Mayor and federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani…
–Former US Attorney General Michael Mukasey…
–Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Hugh Shelton…
–Former NATO Commander General Wesley Clark…
–Former FBI Director and federal prosecutor Louis Freeh…
–Former Philadelphia Mayor and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell…
–Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean…
–Former Pennsylvania Governor and Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge…
…again, to name but a few…
This in and of itself is highly problematic, for the simple reason that these well-educated individuals—some of them lawyers to boot—know full well about the laws forbidding them from doing exactly what they’re doing and yet, very cooly and confidently, they are doing it nonetheless. In at least one case we have the former Attorney General for the United States, Michael Mukasey, at one time singularly responsible for prosecuting those who violate US law, daring the U.S. Justice Department to come after him and his partners in crime, adding insult to injury by repeating George Bush’s infamous line ‘Bring it on’.
The obvious fin sticking out of the waterline in all this making the situation so menacing is indeed the very high profile these individuals enjoy. It is a general rule of thumb that politicians are self-serving cowards with absolutely no moral rudder and who won’t risk having their bacon fall into the fire unless the chance of material loss for such is 0% and the likelihood of profit hovering somewhere near 100.
Therefore, a gaggle of them throwing their chips in simultaneously on what would normally be considered very risky business can only mean one thing—the fix is in and they know it.
In short, they are ready, willing and able to engage in A VERY PUBLIC display of criminal activity, literally before the eyes of the world, because they have been reassured beforehand that the wheels of justice have had the air let out them and that nothing untoward will come their way by doing so.
As bad as this is however, having former Mayors, Governors, Attorneys General, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs and Secretaries of Homeland Security, with malice aforethought brazenly violating U.S. law with regards to material support for terrorism, it gets much worse, as the list of supporters gets longer (and more ominous) by the day.
Besides the aforementioned chorus line of former something-or-others who aren’t at risk of losing any political office to either impeachment or a lost election, we now have an even more dangerous spice being added to the already-poisonous stew, namely rabidly pro-Zionist voices from within what we might call ‘the inner circle’ of organized Jewish interests giving their 2 shekel’s worth as far as ‘un-delegitimizing’ the MeK.
In particular we have Alan Dershowitz, infamous for many things obnoxious to civilized society but in particular loud-mouthing for the release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathon Pollard, singularly responsible for as many as 1,000 deaths and for setting America’s national defense back in a manner not outdone even by the Rosenbergs. Next in line is Elie Wiesel, high priest and carnival barker of Holocau$tism and all its precepts as well as lead prosecutor for anyone daring to question the Jewish narrative viz a viz WWII. And, last but certainly not least, there is Irwin Cotler, former Canadian Minister of Justice, former Attorney General of Canada, one-time chief counsel to the Canadian Jewish Congress and once-upon-a-time personal legal advisor to Natan Sharansky, Jewish supremacist extraordinaire who never encountered a slaughter of Arabs he didn’t like.
Now, the criteria making this latter aspect in pushing to have the MeK legitimized so dangerous is that all the three aforementioned very powerful Jewish political voices also sit on the Board of Advisors to an infamously-known adjunct of Israeli intelligence known as the Middle East Media Research Institute, MEMRI.
MEMRI is the brainchild of—
(1) Yigal Carmon, a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence, and
(2) Meyrav Wurmser, the Israeli-born wife of David Wurmser.
Those who recognize the name David Wurmser in relation to all the chaos taking place in the Middle East certainly should, for in addition to being V.P. Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East advisor he is also one of the chief capos responsible for drawing up the ‘Clean Break’ document written for Netanyahu laying out in frightening detail all the war, regime change and unrest seen in the Middle East since 9/11.
As an interesting and highly-relevant side-note, Wurmser was also the subject of an FBI investigation related to his espionage activities for—surprise, surprise–Israel.
MEMRI’s chief purpose is to fan the flames of conflict between the West and Israel’s enemies by providing ‘translations’ of various articles and broadcasts within the Arabic and Farsi speaking world. We use the word ‘translations’ in quotation marks here because it is well-known in both intelligence and media circles across God’s green earth that MEMRI is often (always) found playing fast and loose with the facts in jinning up a picture that bears little resemblance to fact-based reality.
Those who may not recognize the acronym ‘MEMRI’ nevertheless know its work intimately, for it is this outfit directly responsible for the deliberately-mistranslated ‘wipe Israel off the map’ statement attributed to Iranian Prez Ahmadinejad that has now doubtless been verbally regurgitated millions of times the world over.
So, the fact that we now have added to the chorus line 3 individuals–for all intents and purposes acting as representatives of an adjunct to Israel’s Mossad–agitating for legitimizing a USGOV-designated terrorist organization puts the entire picture in a completely different light.
In short, this is NOT a drill people.
We can now see plainly that the push to have this group freed of all legal impediments to it being able to travel freely and raise money is a top priority as far as Israel is concerned. Whereas the warm-up act featured American politicos schmoozing the audience so as to give it an ‘American’ character rather than an Israeli one, now we have the ‘main event’—meaning the Jewish state herself–stepping forward and giving the entire endeavor its Kosher stamp of approval as well.
As far as dorsal fins go, this entire drama in pushing to have the MeK legitimized indeed says a lot about what is going on beneath the surface.
In the first case, there is the brazen contempt for the rule of law by individuals who have made pandering to the patriotism of the American people something of a vaudeville act. For individuals of the aforedescribed caliber to be coming forward—IN FRONT OF CAMERAS, MICROPHONES AND MULTIPLE WITNESSES—where everything they do and say can be used against them in a court of law, and yet without the slightest hint of concern for any prosecutorial blowback in them throwing their lot in with an officially-designated terrorist organization shows how impotent the system is whenever Israeli interests are involved.
Not that we should be that surprised, when, after all, it was this same system that absolved Israel of her deliberate attack on the USS LIBERTY that resulted in 34 American servicemen being killed, and the same system that sent back the only arrestees on the morning of 9/11—the 5 dancing Israelis–who later admitted on Israeli television that they were Mossad and that they had been sent to America to ‘document the event’.
Indeed, Ariel Sharon was not shystering anyone when he quipped years ago that ‘We control America, and the Americans know it.’
But the one thing, the one question that should keep all persons ‘round the world awake at night, fearing for the events of the following day, is that 3-letter word that will eventually speak volumes as to the exact nature of the true paradigm at work in all this—
Why???
WHY, is Israel so interested in having the MeK removed as a terrorist organization, so much so that she is willing to throw some of her ‘best’ people out there? What’s the upside for her?
Well, again, let us consider what the MeK does and why it is listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the USGOV—
Terror…
As demonstrated by the events and aftermath of 9/11 and as Israel understands all too well, terrorism works. A frightened people, traumatized by an event or a series of them, are as easy to corral as sheep. All anyone need do is consider the disasters wrought against the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan as proof of this fact.
So, at a time when the intellectually-paralyzing effects of 9/11 are beginning to wear off, when Americans are looking forward to closing the book on a decade of war and getting back to the business of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, it may very well be that what Israel needs in order to keep that book open and start a new chapter in her ‘Clean Break’ series is a 9/11, Pt II.
The trouble is, as a result of her KNOWN direct involvement in 9/11 and a growing awareness on the part of not only concerned citizens worldwide, but more importantly, intelligence and law enforcement services in various countries considered targets for Israel’s notorius penchant for blowing things up and then blaming it on someone else, she and her agents cannot move as freely as they once did. They are watched, they are followed, hell, sometimes they are not even permitted entry into certain countries.
But individuals—highly trained individuals (as Seymour Hersh recently reported in an issue of the New Yorker) from the recently legitimized MeK can travel. In fact, they are in a special class all their own, given their status as ‘persecuted’ political refugees, since the Iranian government would hang them as soon as they entered that country.
The MeK can travel, and in the process, the membersof this terrorist organization can put all that training they received from Israel and the U.S. to good use, such as in–
–Blowing up schools, mosques, churches, libraries, government buildings and various market places, just as the MeK did in its own country and against its own countrymen. If the perpetrators are caught, they have Iranian names and–given the mind-control conditioning already established as a particular aspect of MeK membership—would confess to having carried out these acts of terrorism on American soil (or wherever) at the behest of the Iranian government.
After all, that is what the MeK does. They are a 3,500-member army of Manchurian Candidates, trained in assassinations, explosives and the use of terror against civilian populations. The fact that innocent women and children may be involved means nothing. Only 1 0r 2 events where schools have been shot to pieces or blown up with dozens of dead children and the next thing you know the American people are SCREAMING for more war, and of course, against the country showcasing as the next chapter of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ‘Clean Break’ series—Iran.
Last year, Elizabeth Rubin, a New York Times Magazine contributor reported from Camp Ashraf, Iraq, where the MeK is currently marooned, writing an Op-Ed where she criticized the MEK’s American advocates and characterized the group as “a totalitarian cult that will come back to haunt us.”
And indeed, that appears to have been the plan all along.
----------
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)
.
... 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.
--------
Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=12137
Training Terrorists in Nevada: Seymour Hersh on U.S. Aid to Iranian Group Tied to Scientist Killings
(Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult)
.
... Journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed that the Bush administration secretly trained an Iranian opposition group on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorists. Hersh reports the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command trained operatives from Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK, at a secret site in Nevada beginning in 2005. According to Hersh, MEK members were trained in intercepting communications, cryptography, weaponry and small unit tactics at the Nevada site up until President Obama took office. The MEK has been listed as a foreign terrorist groups since 1997 and is linked to a number of attacks, spanning from the murders of six U.S. citizens ...
Democracy Now, April 16 2012
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/10
/training_terrorists_in_nevada_seymour_hersh
Video Link
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/10/
training_terrorists_in_nevada_seymour_hersh
Journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed that the Bush administration secretly trained an Iranian opposition group on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorists. Hersh reports the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command trained operatives from Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK, at a secret site in Nevada beginning in 2005. According to Hersh, MEK members were trained in intercepting communications, cryptography, weaponry and small unit tactics at the Nevada site up until President Obama took office. The MEK has been listed as a foreign terrorist groups since 1997 and is linked to a number of attacks, spanning from the murders of six U.S. citizens in the 1970s to the recent wave of assassinations targeting Iranian nuclear scientists. Hersh also discusses the role of Israeli intelligence and notes the Obama administration knew about the training, "because they have access to what was going on in the previous administration in this area in terms of the MEK, in terms of operations inside Iran." His new report for The New Yorker blog, "Our Men in Iran?," comes as nuclear talks are set to resume this week between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. [includes rush transcript]
Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter for The New Yorker magazine. His latest piece for their website’s "News Desk" blog is titled "Our Men in Iran?"
The Life of Camp Ashraf,
Mojahedin-e Khalq Victims of Many Masters
---------
Also
http://iran-interlink.org/index.php?mod=view&id=12065
Our Men in Iran?
.
... 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.”
-------
Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=12126
An Iranian mystery: Just who are the MEK?
.
... 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.
How to listen to From Our Own Correspondent:
BBC Radio 4: A 30-minute programme on Saturdays, 11:30 BST.
Second 30-minute programme on Thursdays, 11:00 BST (some weeks only).
Listen online or download the podcast
BBC World Service:
Hear daily 10-minute editions Monday to Friday, repeated through the day, also available to listen online.
Read more or explore the archive at the programme website
--------
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 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=11978
Secretary Clinton trapped by a false dichotomy
.
... 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
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.
----
Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=12060
Maliki stresses need to adhere to the Agreement on MKO
(aka; Mojahedin Khalq, MEK, Rajavi cult)
.
... Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki confirmed the need for commitment to the agreement on the Mujahedeen Khalq Organization of Iranian opposition, especially the deadlines of the eviction of MKO from Iraq. Kobler said "the MOU in general establishes a process whereby the Iraqi government will move the Camp Ashraf residents to a temporary site where the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR begins the process of determining refugee description which is a necessary first step to resettle them outside Iraq." ...
Nina News, April 05 2012
Translated by Nejat Society
http://www.nejatngo.org/en/post.aspx?id=4341
Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki confirmed the need for commitment to the agreement on the Mujahedeen Khalq Organization of Iranian opposition, especially the deadlines of the eviction of MKO from Iraq.
A statement issued by the Prime Minister's office today "Maliki met with Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Iraq, Martin Kobler."
397 people from the residents of Camp Ashraf were transferred on January 18 to camp "Liberty" [TTL] in Baghdad, according to a memorandum of understanding signed by the Iraqi government with the UN on October 25th, 2011, for a humanitarian and peaceful settlement for the Camp Ashraf residents.
Kobler said "the MOU in general establishes a process whereby the Iraqi government will move the Camp Ashraf residents to a temporary site where the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR begins the process of determining refugee description which is a necessary first step to resettle them outside Iraq."
He added "the MOU contains a clear commitment by the Iraqi government to ensure the safety and security of the Ashraf camp residents in the new location, the government is also committed to the involvement of the Ministry of Human Rights actively in all stages of the process including the allocation of a liaison officer."
Camp Ashraf, which was established in the beginning of the eighties of the last century, is located about 155 km north of Baquba, capital of Diyala Province, it is the headquarters of the People's Mujahedeen Khalq Organization of Iranian opposition in Iraq, and includes more than 3400 people.
----------
Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11994
Martin Kobler (U.N.), Daniel Fried (U.S.) discuss Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty in European Parliament
(Remains of Mojahedin Khalq, MKO,MEK, in Iraq)
.
... On Wednesday, 21/03/2012 Martin Kobler, the UN Special Representative for Iraq and Head of the United Nation Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), reported to the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee on the work of the UNHCR and UNAMI in Iraq and the current situation of the Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty. As part of his description of the problems of resettlement of the Ashraf residents Kobler said that it demanded a cooperative attitude from the residents. Also the U.S. special envoy for Camp Ashraf, Daniel Fried, said that the information that the United States has of the situation in Camp Ashraf and Liberty is consistent with Kobler's descriptions. The conditions at Camp Liberty are not nearly as bad as described by the MEK ...
European Parliament, March 21 2012
Link to the video file (120 MB)
On Youtube
-------
Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11854
Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) terrorists in Iraq battle using press releases targetting UNAMI
.
... But soon after, the group began complaining about conditions in Camp Liberty and accusing the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), which in January said Liberty met "international humanitarian standards," of misrepresenting conditions there. The PMOI's focus on public relations campaigns marked by frequent statements to the media and cultivating well-known western politicians to speak on its behalf differs dramatically from its past activities. The leftwing group was founded in the 1960s to oppose the shah of Iran, but took up arms against the country's new clerical rulers after the 1979 Islamic revolution ...
The Life of Camp Ashraf,
Mojahedin-e Khalq Victims of Many Masters
AFP, March 05 2012
http://www.france24.com/en/20120304-iran-exiles-iraq-do-battle-using-press-releases
Iran exiles in Iraq do battle using press releases
An Iraq-based Iranian opposition group that is fixated on conspiracy theories allegedly carried out attacks in Iran and elsewhere for decades, but now relies on a different weapon: the press release.
The United Nations mission here, which has been attempting to facilitate the exit of some 3,400 members of the opposition People's Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) from Iraq, where they have been based for decades, has been the latest target of the group's statement-issuing ire.
Iraq wants the PMOI out of its territory, and signed an agreement with the UN in December to that end.
On February 18, the first group of 397 exiles moved from their longtime base of Camp Ashraf in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad to Camp Liberty, a former US military base near the Iraqi capital, as part of that process.
But soon after, the group began complaining about conditions in Camp Liberty and accusing the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), which in January said Liberty met "international humanitarian standards," of misrepresenting conditions there.
The PMOI's focus on public relations campaigns marked by frequent statements to the media and cultivating well-known western politicians to speak on its behalf differs dramatically from its past activities.
The leftwing group was founded in the 1960s to oppose the shah of Iran, but took up arms against the country's new clerical rulers after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The US State Department, which blacklists the PMOI as a terrorist organisation, says it has carried out attacks that killed Iranians, as well as American soldiers and civilians, from the 1970s into 2001.
Now-executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein allowed the PMOI to establish Camp Ashraf in Iraq after he launched the 1980-88 war with Iran in which the group reportedly fought alongside his forces, and provided financial backing to the group.
But the PMOI said it renounced violence in 2001 and its members in Iraq were disarmed following the 2003 US-led invasion, leaving it in need of other tactics.
It successfully campaigned to be delisted as a terrorist organisation in Europe and is working to do the same in the US too.
A day after the first group of the exiles moved to Liberty, PMOI spokesman Shahriar Kia sent a statement by email alleging a UN expert who assessed the camp told "lies" and apparently "was compelled to file an unrealistic report," with "necessary modifications" made by "political authorities" from UNAMI.
"The bungalows and toilet facilities" were "dirty and unusable," and "there is serious water shortage and electricity is cut off, as in prisons, after 10.30 pm."
A statement emailed the next day described Camp Liberty as "a highly controlled prison," referring to the presence of Iraqi security forces.
Iraqi forces carried out two deadly raids on Camp Ashraf in 2009 and 2011, leaving dozens of people dead.
It continued: "Everything shows that at the behest of the Iranian regime, the Iraqi government has turned this camp into a prison and regretfully, UNAMI and (UN envoy) Mr Martin Kobler himself ... assist in this prison-making by confirming it as a refugee camp."
Another email from Kia on February 27 referred to the "lies that Martin Kobler made to the residents of Camp Ashraf for a forcible relocation to Camp Liberty."
When asked about the PMOI statements, Kobler told AFP that Camp Liberty "was host of 5,000 American soldiers, so it should be possible to have the infrastructure ready also for these 400 persons who are now living there."
"I do not think that the infrastructure problem is the problem," he said.
"If there is garbage, the garbage can be removed and should be removed, and the government of Iraq stands ready ... to have garbage trucks available, but they have to enter the camp to remove the garbage," he said.
"The aim of the whole exercise is to have the ... refugee status determination moving," he said, referring to a process which must be completed before the exiles can be resettled.
The PMOI meanwhile says it is facing "conspiracies."
"The whole plan for the relocation of the residents of Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty is an Iranian plan, and the mullah?s regime?s plan, and nobody else," Kia said in an interview with AFP, referring to the cleric-led government in Tehran.
He referred to the new camp as "Prison Liberty," saying that "their plan is to destroy the Iranian opposition" there.
Kia also said that "espionage cameras and ... eavesdropping devices" in Liberty give information "to the Iranian embassy and to the agents of the Iranian regime."
When asked about the purpose of the flurry of statements on the UN, Kia referred to demands over Camp Liberty.
These include the removal of Iraqi armed forces from Liberty and freedom of movement for residents, but also, despite numerous statements accusing the UN of lying about conditions there, a demand for around-the-clock UN monitoring.
.jpg)
(Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, cult leaders)
(Rajavi cult or MKO aslo known as Saddam's Private Army)
(Maryam Rajavi directly ordered the massacre of Kurdish people)
(Ali Safavi, coach witnesses before and during the hearing)
(Ali Safavi as the commander of Saddam's Private Army in Iraq)
(Daniel Zucker, Maryam Rajavi and ALi Safavi in terror HQ in Paris )
(Alireza Jafarzadeh and Michael Mukasey prior to his testimony)
Jafarzadeh representing terrorist organisation NCRI
(Picture form MKO/ NCRI clandestine television)
Jafarzadeh has already published his suicide bombing note