Robert Mackey, The Intercept, April 09 2019:… Maryam Rajavi, the leader of an Iranian exile group known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or People’s Mujahedeen — which successfully lobbied to be removed from the official State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations with the help of paid supporters like Bolton — also took credit for the new sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
On the Eve of Israel’s Election, Netanyahu Thanks Trump for Sanctioning Iran at His Request
ON THE EVE of Israel’s election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took credit for President Donald Trump’s decision to impose sanctions on Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, by designating it a foreign terrorist organization.
“Thank you, my dear friend, President Donald Trump,” Netanyahu tweeted in Hebrew, “for answering another one of my important requests.”
As the Telegraph correspondent Raf Sanchez noted, Netanyahu’s choice of words seemed to imply that Trump’s earlier decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Syrian territory Israel seized by force in 1967, was also a gift given at the request of the embattled Israeli prime minister.
Netanyahu is taking credit for Trump’s decision to designate the Revolutionary Guard as terrorists. “Thank you for responding to another important request of mine,” Bibi says.
He got the Golan 2 weeks ago and now this 1 day before Israel’s election. https://t.co/PAvX22o4Y5
One day before Israelis go to the polls, Netanyahu is pulling out all the stops, since he faces both an immediate electoral challenge from Israel’s former military Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz, and the prospect of a post-election indictment on corruption charges.
Joe Dyke, an Agence France-Presse correspondent, pointed out that Netanyahu omitted the claim that Trump’s move was made at his request in a subsequent tweet in English. That left the prime minister open to the charge often leveled at Palestinian leaders by Israelis, that they placate the international community in English and then say something quite different for domestic consumption in their native tongue.
File this one away for the next time an Israeli official says “The Palestinians say one thing in English and another in Arabic” https://t.co/1OjAtWKGCH
Trump is popular with Israel’s right-leaning, nationalist electorate for a string of concessions to Israeli claims, including the de facto recognition of Israel’s illegal annexation of occupied East Jerusalem as well as the Golan Heights. Netanyahu’s warm relations with the American president have featured heavily in his re-election campaign.
On Sunday, Netanyahu also shared a segment from Fox News in which Sean Hannity called Gantz “his crazy opponent,” for suggesting that Trump was meddling in Israel’s election.
צפו בקטע מתוך תוכנית החדשות הנצפית ביותר בארה״ב.
יועצו הקרוב של נשיא ארה״ב דונלד טראמפ, רודי ג׳וליאני, תוקף את גנץ על כך שתקף את הנשיא טראמפ על שהכיר בריבונות ישראל ברמת הגולן. pic.twitter.com/q1lTu7oPjB
Soon after Trump’s decision to sanction the Revolutionary Guard Corps was announced, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweetedthat Trump’s action was the result of lobbying by “Netanyahu Firsters,” including John Bolton, who made paid speeches advocating regime change in Iran before he became the national security adviser, and Sheldon Adelson, a financial supporter of both the American president and the Israeli prime minister who once suggested a nuclear strike on Iran would be the best way to start negotiations.
It was, Zarif added, another “misguided election-eve gift to Netanyahu.”
A(nother) misguided election-eve gift to Netanyahu. A(nother) dangerous U.S. misadventure in the region.
After Netanyahu’s Hebrew-language tweet taking credit for the decision, Zarif tweeted a screenshot of a report from the Israeli press with the letters “Q.E.D.” a Latin phrase used at the end of a mathematical proof, indicating that the truth of a proposition has been demonstrated.
#NetanyahuFirsters who have long agitated for FTO designation of the IRGC fully understand its consequences for US forces in the region. In fact, they seek to drag US into a quagmire on his behalf.@realDonaldTrump should know better than to be conned into another US disaster. pic.twitter.com/i4bcfgxybT
Senior Pentagon and C.I.A. officials opposed Trump’s decision to impose sanctions on the military unit and affiliated companies and individuals, arguing that it would “allow hard-line Iranian officials to justify deadly operations against Americans overseas,” The New York Times reported. Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council, offered this as proof that Netanyahu now seems to have more sway over the president’s decisions than his own military and intelligence officials.
Once again, Trump dismisses American military and intelligence officials, and instead listens to Netanyahu and Saudi crown Prince MBS. #IRGChttps://t.co/6jwPPCfjF8
Maryam Rajavi, the leader of an Iranian exile group known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or People’s Mujahedeen — which successfully lobbied to be removed from the official State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations with the help of paid supporters like Bolton — also took credit for the new sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The terrorist designation of the repressive Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been the enduring and the righteous demand of the Iranian people and Resistance and an imperative for regional and global peace and security. #Iran#BlackListIRGC
Iran retaliated, as the BBC Persian correspondent Bahman Kalbasi noted, by designating The United States Central Command a terrorist organization and naming the U.S. government a supporter of terrorism.
Iran Supreme National Security Council has issued a statement saying it now considers CENTCOM and all the groups affiliated with it as a “terrorist organization” and US Gov. as a supporter of terrorism….good day for warmongers in DC, Tehran, Tel Aviv, as well as UAE/Saudi. https://t.co/vxtWVlZtW7
It’s a mistake to treat the MEK as a normal opposition group
Anne Khodabandeh, Iran Interlink, February 27 2019:… It is a mistake to approach the MEK as a normal opposition. Indeed, quoting MEK members is like giving a platform to Flat Earthers or Creationists. It is not balanced reporting. The MEK is a unique entity. Not an opposition, not a ‘group’ or ‘organization’, descriptions which imply a certain kind of accountable system and order.
It’s a mistake to treat the MEK as a normal opposition group
Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton)
When reporter Luisa Hommerich wrote her investigative piece in Der Spiegel titled ‘Prisoners of Their Own Rebellion – The Cult-like Group Fighting Iran’, which exposes the grim situation for MEK members, I doubt she was expecting death threats to follow. After all, she was just doing her job. But that is exactly what the MEK reaction was. A Farsi language statement (written and published in Europe) promised her assassination. Nice.
Of course, for those who already know the MEK, this is not surprising. A timely reminder that the MEK cannot disown its past and cannot stop repeating its past, came in an interview with Nabi Ahamadi, who escaped the cult in Albania recently. Ahmadi was a close friend of Malik Sharai who was killed by MEK in June last year. He confirmed that Sharai was one of the few remaining witnesses to the mysterious death of 53 MEK members in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. He also confirmed that Sharai had asked to leave the group but was then held in solitary isolation before being physically eliminated by the MEK leaders. As a trained swimmer, Ahamdi says it is implausible that he drowned as MEK claim.
Another example is the suspicious assassination of Mohammad Reza Kolahi – the bomber of the Jomhouri Party headquarters in 1981 who was killed in the Netherlands in 2015. After he left the MEK Kolahi was always going to be a liability. He knew too much. So, why is nobody asking Maryam Rajavi about this convenient death?
One reason of course is that the MEK leader Maryam Rajavi refuses to engage with journalists, investigators, researchers. Anyone in fact who might get to the truth about her organization. Indeed, Hommerich did her job thoroughly, as did the journalists of Aljazeera, The Guardian, Independent, Channel 4 News, NBC and other down the years (there is a very long list). They all asked the MEK to give their side, to comment on their findings and to have a voice. The MEK called them all agents of the Iranian intelligence services and refused to talk.
It is a mistake to approach the MEK as a normal opposition. Indeed, quoting MEK members is like giving a platform to Flat Earthers or Creationists. It is not balanced reporting. The MEK is a unique entity. Not an opposition, not a ‘group’ or ‘organization’, descriptions which imply a certain kind of accountable system and order.
Hommerich asked to speak with someone from the MEK (NCRI) but they did not reply. Instead, she spoke with some of the many defectors who have escaped. Their stories do not differ much from the testimony of other former members over thirty years: the MEK is a cult that routinely and systematically abuses the human rights of its whole membership. According to 50-year-old Gholamreza Shekari, this is achieved through ‘lies, manipulation and fear’; a methodology known as Cultic Abuse.
For the record, the MEK is a cult. Maryam Rajavi keeps slaves. It is that simple.
Maryam Rajavi (Mojahedin Khalq, MEK leader) just doesn’t get it does she
Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), February 10 2019:… Her desperate efforts to stay visible – parading on stage in glamorous outfits before paid speakers and audience – expose her ego rather than her leadership. As de facto leader of the MEK, Rajavi has successfully carved out a niche for the mercenary MEK in the anti-Iran front – acting out the silent wishes of America, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who might proclaim an interest in regime change against Iran, but who cannot necessarily do the dirty deeds. By continually insisting on her propaganda events she is overstepping her mandate: the MEK’s role is to get paid, do the work, then disappear.
Maryam Rajavi (Ideological leader of Mojahedin Khalq, MEK) just doesn’t get it does she
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has invited several of what are known as Iran’s ‘fake opposition’ to his Middle East summit in Warsaw on 13-14 February. (A thinly disguised Iran bashing fest!). But Rajavi is being kept at arms’ length, a barge pole’s length even. She has not been invited.
To be clear, Maryam Rajavi is notorious inside the MEK to be jealous and throw tyrannical temper tantrums. No doubt she reacted similarly to the photograph of Pompeo posing alongside the much younger controversial ‘activist’ Masih Alinejad circulating in social media. Though, apparently, these days just about anybody except Rajavi can have their picture taken with Pompeo.
Rajavi’s actions indicate that she really doesn’t understand why this is. Her desperate efforts to stay visible – parading on stage in glamorous outfits before paid speakers and audience – expose her ego rather than her leadership. As de facto leader of the MEK, Rajavi has successfully carved out a niche for the mercenary MEK in the anti-Iran front – acting out the silent wishes of America, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who might proclaim an interest in regime change against Iran, but who cannot necessarily do the dirty deeds. By continually insisting on her propaganda events she is overstepping her mandate: the MEK’s role is to get paid, do the work, then disappear.
Rajavi is not invited to Warsaw because, quite frankly, she and her organization stink. The smell of terrorism, murder, crime and corruption cling to the MEK in spite of all the group’s efforts to whitewash, re-write, lobby and otherwise hide their past and present. No other fake opposition is as dirty and untrustworthy as the MEK. No other fake opposition keeps its members as slaves and kills dissenters. No other fake opposition commits false flag ops to blame on Iran and destroy trust.
So, while western media is reluctant to delve deeper into what the MEK are actually capable of, the security services which advise those governments who turn a blind eye to this activity are fully aware of Maryam Rajavi’s weaknesses. The fact she is prepared to sell her homeland for dollars means she is just as easily capable of selling another country for Rials when the time comes!
(End)
***
Anne Khodabandeh, Open Minds, De-Radicalisation Consultant, PHOTO-EXHIBITION in Bruxelles (International Terrorism Mojahedin Khalq, MEK, NCRI, Rajavi cult)
Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) leader Maryam Rajavi must have been furious that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo didn’t invite her to his Middle East summit in Poland on 13-14 February. What did she expect? Did she assume that as the ‘president elect of the main opposition to Iran’ she would have a seat at the table. Just like Ahmed Chalabi had before Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.
Either she has misunderstood the MEK’s role as a mercenary force – get paid, do the work, then disappear – or she is wilfully doing more than she’s paid for. Either way, Rajavi, the queen of propaganda, will make sure she is not ignored and the MEK at least looks relevant in the regime change game against Iran.
Maryam Rajavi announced a rally in Paris to be held on February 8th. The only problem, where to find an audience. In typical MEK fashion, top members were immediately dispatched to Camp Manez in Albania to charge up the ancient residents there as if they were going on a military adventure. They are not what is needed though. The members are too old, sick and despondent to wave a flag and cheer, more importantly they do not have ID papers or travel documents to get to Paris.
Instead, MEK members are on an intensive recruitment drive to gather as many Albanians as possible to travel to Paris for the rally as a show of popular support. There is nothing new in this. For two decades the MEK has had to bus in paid rent-a-crowd extras because its own supporters and members have abandoned the cult in such great numbers.
According to on the ground sources in Albania, the MEK is targeting youth, especially students from rural areas. Here is the offer:
A free 4-5 day trip to Paris with free air ticket, free transport, free hotel and free food. The Albanians will also be given a free bus ride to take them to the Tati store for shopping where they can buy clothes, umbrellas and shoes at dirt cheap prices.
The only condition: They must attend the conference. But even there they will enjoy free coffee breaks, free lunch and free soft drinks and cakes.
At this point you may expect this blogger to tut and warn against such bribery and deception. But no. If Albania’s political class and its media are happy to take money and favours from Rajavi, why not her citizens. Why should Pandeli Majko and Elona Gjebrea and a lot of others take advantage of the MEK’s generosity, and not the poor citizens of the country.
Students should accept the MEK offer. Take a free break in Paris. Go to the MEK gathering; you won’t be interested, but you can take a book or magazine to read, or catch up with your course work while you are there!
Nobody who knows anything about the MEK will be fooled into thinking that you are Iranian, or that you have any knowledge of, or support for the group. Go. Enjoy yourselves. Don’t let your corrupt leaders get all the freebies.
Bolton/Pompeo used MEK to prep the table for Warsaw summit against EU interests
Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Balkans Post, January 27 2019:… The Poland summit is an indication that top officials in the Trump administration like former CIA chief Mike Pompeo and Trump’s Security Advisor John Bolton now feel confident they can create Trump’s foreign policy for him. The MEK’s use as a regime change tool is not new, but it was a speech made by John Bolton (before he was appointed Security Advisor) at the 2017 MEK rally in Paris that first indicated that his advocacy for using the MEK for regime change against Iran had a timeline.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s global summit in Warsaw on 13 and 14 February to discuss Middle East issues was greeted with scepticism. It was widely interpreted as a thinly veiled excuse to talk about Iran. And because Iran was not invited, the agenda could only be hostile.
But while it is acknowledged that Pompeo wants to build consensus against Iran, it is also understood that Pompeo’s first target is the European Union. Efforts to get the EU to withdraw from the JCPOA have already failed. This time, Pompeo hopes his approach will undermine the unity and integrity of the European Union itself. There are already divisions. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini has rejected the invitation. But European countries which may send representatives are those – Denmark, Belgium and Holland – which have allegedly been targeted by Iran for terrorist acts.
Manufactured threat to Europe
The Poland summit is an indication that top officials in the Trump administration like former CIA chief Mike Pompeo and Trump’s Security Advisor John Bolton now feel confident they can create Trump’s foreign policy for him.
Pompeo will come to Poland with a list of grievances against Iran, including human rights violations, destabilising the region, terrorism and of course, Iran’s ballistic missile programme. Some grievances are subject to interpretation – Iran of course is in Syria at the invitation of Bashar al Assad. Iran’s success in driving back Daesh in Syria and Iraq is undisputable. However, there is evidence that some grievances have been manufactured to deliberately demonise Iran. From its closed base in Albania, the Iranian Mojahedin Khalq (aka MEK, MKO, NCRI, Rajavi cult) been busy behind the scenes for over two years creating a false narrative designed to persuade European politicians that Iran is a threat to Europe.
The MEK’s use as a regime change tool is not new, but it was a speech made by John Bolton (before he was appointed Security Advisor) at the 2017 MEK rally in Paris that first indicated that his advocacy for using the MEK for regime change against Iran had a timeline. “Before 2019”, he told his audience, “we here will celebrate in Tehran”. Others chimed in; Albania’s former prime minister Pandeli Majko boasted that he would eat ice cream with the MEK in Tehran after they conquered Iran. As 2018 passed into 2019 commentators mocked. However, the idea of an active plan wasn’t picked up until last week when it was revealed that Bolton was doing everything within his power to push for President Trump to launch a military attack on Iran. The dots now begin to join up.
Regime Change Timetable
John Bolton is a long-term paid cheerleader for the MEK. He did not hesitate to visit them when they arrived in Albania to give them his blessing. And also, it seems, to enable their activities. In the Autumn of 2017, the MEK were given the green light to evade the de-radicalisation programme agreed by the Obama administration and regroup in a closed camp 30km from the capital where the cultic conditions of Iraq could be replicated.
Inside the camp the MEK were helped to create a click farm, using the slave labour of the members, to create and curate an online narrative concerning Iran to shape public and political perception on human rights, terrorism, nuclear intentions, etc.
In March 2018, the MEK made a false allegation against two retired Iranian journalists. They were invited to Albania to celebrate Norouz or Persian New Year by religious leader Baba Mundi and the Bektashi community. The MEK told police they were there to kill MEK members in their remote camp. Albanian police found no evidence and apologised to the men and the religious community. But the MEK narrative has been repeated so many times that it has taken on the aspect of fact. Indeed, it has now taken on the aspect of a ‘super-fact’ as faked embellishments to the story have been added; “A truck loaded with explosives was set to attack 3,000 members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) who are refugees in Albania, the dissident faction explained..”
In April 2018, the MEK the suspicious death of a troublesome member was a reminder that the MEK has a history of eliminating its members to whitewash its past. The impunity with which the MEK can act has transferred from Iraq to Albania because the MEK is protected by America. The Albanians do not have authority over the MEK in their own country.
In July 2018, just after the MEK held its annual propaganda rally in Paris to promote its regime change agenda an alleged assassination plot was immediately blamed on Iran. Iran however denied responsibility and called it a false flag op aimed at alienating the EU. Iranian media published information that two of those involved were long-term MEK supporters.
MEK are untrustworthy
With this background, it is hardly surprising that while anti-Iran pundits are happy to take money to promote the MEK as the main opposition, its leader Maryam Rajavi has not been invited to the summit in Poland. Not only would that ensure a total boycott, but Rajavi herself cannot answer for the criminal and subversive activities of her group. Instead of staying in the shadows though, Maryam Rajavi has insisted on holding her own propaganda rally in Paris on the 8th February, desperate to maintain the fiction that the MEK is relevant and popular and that it is the key to regime change.
Pompeo may echo this message but will fall short of promoting the MEK. The real reason for keeping the MEK at arms-length is not just because it is too dirty, but because ultimately the MEK cannot be trusted. The rally on 8th February is an example of the MEK doing its own thing. It may be a paid mercenary group but Rajavi doesn’t know when to stop. The Intelligence community knows the MEK. It is a group which will take money to kill Iranians. It is a group which may also, one day, take money to kill Americans. It would be disastrous for any government to share a platform with such people and Albania should follow America’s example; keep the MEK at a distance.
ANNE KHODABANDEH Anne Khodabandeh, is an expert in anti-terrorist activities and a long-standing activist in the field of deradicalization of extremists. She has written several articles and books on this subject, along with her husband, who is of Iranian origin.
Daniel Larison, The American Conservative, January 14 2019:… Bolton also distrusts multilateral agreements and has close ties with the Mujahedin-e Khalq or MEK, an Iranian opposition group with a past history of assassinating American citizens.The other survivor so far of Trump’s reality show administration is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. A self-described “counterpuncher,” Pompeo, who replaced the more moderate and less Iran-phobic …
James Mattis’ tenure at the Pentagon ends today. Sina Azodi and Barbara Slavin consider what his departure could mean for the future of Iran policy:
The retired Marine general had policy differences with the president about Iran as well. While a supporter of containment, Mattis advocated remaining within the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). His departure tilts the balance in Trump’s national security team in favor of more hawkish individuals who have openly advocated regime change as the ultimate solution to US differences with the Islamic Republic.
When Mattis resigned, I warned that his successor would likely be more of a yes-man and less willing or able to restrain the president’s belligerent tendencies. That might seem like a strange thing to say until we remember that Mattis was responsible for curbing the president’s desire for a much larger military response against the Syrian government in the spring of this year, and according to some accounts he was a major obstacle to an attack on North Korea in 2017. Trump supporters have been quick to credit the president for de-escalation and limited intervention that happened because Mattis restrained him, and they have been equally swift in shifting blame for his escalations of other wars to the people around him. Mattis was unwilling to end our current pointless and illegal wars, but it is also true that he was responsible for keeping Trump from starting new ones.
Mattis shared the administration’s Iran obsession to an alarming degree, but as Azodi and Slavin point out his departure removes one of the only counterweights inside the administration to the much more rabid Persophobes in Bolton and Pompeo. It could also mean one less obstacle inside the administration to an attack on Iran that Bolton and Pompeo have wanted for many years. Azodi and Slavin continue:
Left atop Trump’s national security team is national security adviser, John Bolton, a so-called “offensive realist” who has long pushed for bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities. Bolton also distrusts multilateral agreements and has close ties with the Mujahedin-e Khalq or MEK, an Iranian opposition group with a past history of assassinating American citizens.
The other survivor so far of Trump’s reality show administration is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. A self-described “counterpuncher,” Pompeo, who replaced the more moderate and less Iran-phobic Rex Tillerson, has also suggested in the past that US should consider attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
U.S. forces may be withdrawn from Syria in the coming year (or maybe they won’t be), but that doesn’t mean that war with Iran has become less likely.
Mesissa Etehad, LA Times, January 13 2019:… MEK, is a shadowy organization with a militant past. Up until 2012, it was deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Led by a husband-and-wife power couple — Massoud and Maryam Rajavi — the group was sheltered and armed by Saddam Hussein for nearly 20 years. Known for its female-led military units, the MEK was disarmed after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Massoud Rajavi went missing …
Tehran times and Mehr News, Tehran, January 12 2019:… Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted to be behind murder plot allegations. Mojahedin Khalq terrorist group (MKO/MEK/ Maryam Rajavi cult) and Al-Ahvaziya group how took responsibility for the latest terror attack in Iran are free in Europe. Last summer, they held their held their annual forum in Paris with the presence of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, calling for regime change in Iran. The MKO listed as a terrorist organisation by much of the international
Iran Interlink, January 11 2019:… There were two more deaths this week in Albania. Every week two or three members are dying. On one side it can be put down to their age, but on the other hand some deaths are suspicious. There is no oversight or inspections to find out what happened to them. We have only to accept what MEK say about them. Behzad Massoudi, who died this week, was with MEK for over forty years. Everyone who knows him says he had no illness as the MEK claim. But he was a critic during all his time with them …
Press TV, January 09 2019:… The Leader was referring to comments by US National Security Adviser John Bolton. “Before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran,” Bolton told an MKO meeting in July 2017. Ayatollah Khamenei said, “Christmas was a few days ago. This is how US calculations work.” “Some US officials pretend that they are mad. Of course I don’t agree with that. Rather, they are first-class idiots,”
Nejat Society, January 09 2019:… “In 1989 a team of MKO recruiters headed by Mehdi Abrishamchi launched their propaganda in the POW’s camps to recruit us,” Mohammadian writes in his statement of defection. “Together with some other Iranian prisoners, I joined them but, soon I found out that their propaganda was completely false”. He witnessed an immoral, undemocratic and inhuman atmosphere in the group. It was like the collapse of …
Press TV, January 08 2019:… “Europeans, incl Denmark, Holland & France, harbor MEK—who killed 12000 Iranians & abetted Saddam’s crimes against Iraqi Kurds—as well as other terrorists staging murder of innocent Iranians from Europe. Accusing Iran won’t absolve Europe of responsibility for harbouring terrorists,” Zarif said in a post on his official Twitter account. Iran’s top
Nejat Society, January 08 2019:… When approached in person, Amnesty International officials have not accepted responsibility for the content of this report and have instead referred complainants to the authors and asked them to send their complaints to the writers directly, which is quite odd. Amnesty International did not deny the role of the MEK and Shadi Sadr. One of the c
Reza Alghurabi, Press TV, January 20 2021:... The MKO’s worrisome track record has not deterred prominent Americans from endorsing the organization. In the months preceding the State Department’s decision to delist the MKO, dozens of well-known advocates—primarily but not exclusively conservatives—lobbied on behalf of the group. Vocal supporters included former CIA directors R. James Woolsey Jr. and Porter Goss, former…
Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh, Iran Interlink, January 18 2021:... President Joe Biden will only have months to make a difference if he wants to pursue a diplomatic route. He must demonstrate through policies and actions that Trump was a hiccup, not the way things will be. Trump was not America. If Biden wants to start talking with Iran he must…
Dr. Olsi Jazexhi and Gerjgji Thanasi, YouTube, January 17 2021:... The discussion of MEK's attack against freedom of media and democracy in Albania is compared with the censorship that Big Tech is doing against Rudy Giuliani and Trump in the United States. Olsi appeals to Rudy Giuliani to teach his good jihadi friend Maryam Rajavi to learn what democracy and…
Iran Interlink, January 15 2021:... As the number of deaths in the MEK camp at Manez in Albania due to COVID-19 continues to rise, the MEK have appropriated a section of the local cemetery to bury their dead. This week, residents of the town protested that a piece of land which had already been designated for expansion of the cemetery…
Tehran Times, January 13 2021:... Iran cannot possibly be expected to trust the United States again after the unilateral withdrawal of the Trump administration from the JCPOA P5+1 nuclear deal, the subsequent American imposition of wartime economic sanctions on Iran, and obvious American involvement in and support for the [Gen.] Soleimani and Fakhrizadeh assassinations. I believe the more recent Fakhrizadeh…
Daniel Larison, The American Conservative, January 13 20201:... the U.S. government doesn’t understand the countries in question, it relies on bad information that is frequently offered to them by self-serving exiles and activists, and it doesn’t know how to do state-and-institution-building on such a large scale in any case. The U.S. has expended vast resources for decades on some of…
Robert Fantina, Global research, January 11 2021:... It took at least three years, from 2013 – 2016, for the Iraqi government and political-social activists to oust the Mujahedin from Iraq. Few countries were willing to shelter the Mujahedin. However, with the support of the United States, they relocated to Albania. This was an interesting development, because the MKO is a…
Mazda Parsi, Nejat Society, January 10 2021:... Two of the people who have recently labeled by the MEK propaganda as Iranian mercenaries are Dr. Olsi Jazexhi, the Albanian Canadian historian who is interested in the cases of families of the MEK members in the group’s camp in Albania and Gjergji Thanasi, a journalist who pursues the case of MEK’s illegal…
Nejat Society, January 09 2020:... Mr. Mohammad Aq Atabai, whose brother Hamid Mohammad Aq Atabai is being held in the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) camp in Albania, has lodged a complaint against the Albanian government to the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances under the UN Convention against the Protection of All Persons against Forced disappearance. While explaining his brother’s story, he…
Iran Interlink, January 09 2021:... Coronavirus has infected the whole of Camp Ashraf 3 - everyone has it. Instead of using quarantine to control the spread, Maryam Rajavi and a few of her inner circle quarantined themselves to keep safe. She and the few members who don’t have the virus are quarantined and have limited contact with a few safe…