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http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/peoples_muhajedin_of_iran_mek/

Washington backed People s Mujahedin Who are they?

... The group was expelled from Iran in 1981 when it fell out of favor with Ayatollah Khomeini in a postrevolutionary power struggle.Since then, it has launched thousands of attacks against Iranians it has deemed agents of the regime, peaking at a rate of three assassinations per day in the 1980s, and staged high-profile raids on Iranian diplomatic offices all over the worldincluding an orchestrated set of attacks on 12 diplomatic facilities in 10 countries on a single day in 1992.In the mid-1980s, MEK settled in Iraq as a guest of Saddam Hussein, who offered the group use of Camp Ashraf, an encampment and army base north of Baghdad ...
Institute for Policy Studies www.ips-dc.org Right Web, October 18 2012 The Peoples Mujahedin of Iran (Mojahedin-e Khalq-e Iran, or MEK) is an Islamic- and Marxist-inspired militant organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The group was founded in 1963 as an armed guerrilla group after the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi violently suppressed opposition to his regime. Over the years, the group developed a track record of violent opposition to the Iranian regimeboth against the monarchy and the Islamic government that succeeded itand countries deemed supportive of it, including at one time the United States. For years, the group was considered a proscribed terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. But on the heelsof an aggressive and well-funded lobbying campaign supported by a bipartisan cast of high -profile former public officials, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in September 2012 that she was removing the group from the State Departments list of foreign terrorist organizations, where the MEK had been listed since 1997. [1] The groups origins are eccentric and its history tumultuous. According to the U.S. State Department, The group participated in the 1979 Islamic Revolution that replaced the Shah with a Shiite Islamist regime led by Ayatollah Khomeini. However, the MEKs ideologya blend of Marxism, feminism, and Islamismwas at odds with the postrevolutionary government, and its original leadership was soon executed by the Khomeini regime. In 1981, the group was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Iraq in its eight-year war against Khomeinis Iran. In 1986, after France recognized the Iranian regime, the MEK moved its headquarters to Iraq, which facilitated its terrorist activities in Iran. Since 2003, roughly 3,400 MEK members have been encamped at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.[2] As of late 2012, most of the residents of Camp Ashraf had been relocated to another facility in Iraq to await resettlement in third countries. The MEKs cooperation in the relocationwhich had previously sparked concerns of a planned mass suicide by group members resistant to the move[3]was reportedly a key factor in Clintons decision to delist the group.[4] Continued to page 4

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MKO Still Glorifies Violence and Militarism

...Transformation from a terrorist to a civilian organization includes measures as stated in the groups issued statement: All recruitment has ceased; military training has ceased; targeting has ceased and all intelligence rendered obsolete; all active service units have been de-activated; all ordinance has been put beyond reach and the IICD instructed accordingly. The statement seems to be a sensible recognition of a new political reality that the world is no more a place for armed or violent actions, rather any pro-democratic move is welcomed if the repentant armed groups really mean it...
Mojahedin.ws, October 27, 2012 The terrorist organizations that for national causes decide to forswear violent campaign and practice of terrorism may be granted the opportunity to accomplish their political demands through peaceful avenues. The groups and organizations that claim to have renounced armed campaign are mostly judged by their actions rather than the words. There are groups that indeed mean what they say and declare it publicly for the world to see and judge. On the contrary, there exist groups that their non-proclaimed but quoted claims of renouncing terrorism corroborate the intention of evading a just judgment rather than adhering to non-violent practices to fulfill the rightful objectives. The removal of Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/ PMOI from the State Departments FTO has been seen as the result of a costly campaign by members of Congress, Washington lobby groups and influential former officials to bury the MKOs bloody history of bombings and assassinations that not only killed American military personnel and businessmen but also Iranian personalities and thousands of civilians. It was also assumed a hard campaign to portray it as a loyal US ally against the Islamic government in Tehran. In fact, there does exist a credibility gap between the taken decision and the existing fact about the nature of MKO; it is impossible to consider a heavily armed and militant group transformed into a prodemocratic campaigner overnight with no officially made statement. Consider the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) for instance. Through an officially issued statement, UVF declared that as of 12 midnight, Thursday 3 May 2007, the Ulster Volunteer Force and Red Hand Commando will assume a non-military, civilianized, role. Formed as an armed group in Northern Ireland, it declared war on the IRA and made note of the fact that they were heavily armed Protestants dedicated to this cause. In the course of its forty-year long armed activities, UVF had been reportedly responsible for the killing of some 550 people. Whatever the cause, it had created a nightmare of terrorism threat that led to its proscription as a terrorist group. Although the group had already declared a 13-year long ceasefire, it was still known responsible for a variety of scattered murders and crimes. Transformation from a terrorist to a civilian organization includes measures as stated in the groups issued

statement: All recruitment has ceased; military training has ceased; targeting has ceased and all intelligence rendered obsolete; all active service units have been de-activated; all ordinance has been put beyond reach and the IICD instructed accordingly. The statement seems to be a sensible recognition of a new political reality that the world is no more a place for armed or violent actions, rather any pro-democratic move is welcomed if the repentant armed groups really mean it. The sole move to recognize MKO a pro-democratic group that has never renounced terrorism is a decision made by the US for political considerations. MKO is a terrorist group with a forty-year long history of violence and the most vicious terrorist activities against Iranian people. There is no exact number of the victims of its atrocities but it is believed to reach thousands. Then, when reconsidering MKOs terrorist status, if these terrors and atrocities have been interpreted as democratic deeds in a process of civil campaigns, MKO needs no issued statement of renunciation as nothing has changed but definitions of terms. Thus, according to a new definition of democracy, any group has the right to shed peoples blood for the cause of a self-defined democracy and accredited interests. But who are to assume the responsibility for the shed bloods remain an unanswered question in such a new political order.

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http://www.nejatngo.org/en/post.aspx?id=4879

Abdul Hamid Raufian speaks of his years of imprisonment in the cult of Rajavi
. Sahar Family Foundation, Baghdad, October 29 2012
Translated by Nejat Society Mr. Abdol Hamid Raufian who could manage to escape the terrorist Cult of Rajavi describes how he was first trapped in the hands of Rajavis gang: I was taken as a war prisoner by Iraqi Baath forces in 1988 (during Iran-Iraq war), I was then sent to Camp Ashraf following the deals made between MKO leaders and Iraqi forces. Since then we were severely kept under the groups deceitful mind control system. Regarding their long-term programming they could cut us off the outside world, so they succeeded to change our minds about our country. These criminals could even cut us from our family who was once so precious to us. We were so extremely under pressure that we would use offensive words against our parents who were our dearest ones in life. We considered the criminal leaders of the cult, Massoud Rajavi and the evil Maryam our everything and we were made-up to serve them. If you wanted to think about your family for a few seconds, they would humiliate you so severely that you would never think about them again. They would hold numerous meetings such as Current Operation where a large number of zealous members would attack you, verbally abusing you. Therefore nobody dared to talk about or even think about his family. Four years ago, they gave me the letter my brother had sent to me via Red Cross, following my insistence on contacting my family. There was a phone number on the foot of the letter. I could call my mother under a heavy mental pressure because my contact was highly controlled by the cult leaders. I should talk with my mother after 23 years, and this was the start of thinking about an opportunity to run away from the cult. Thank God, I could find the opportunity. Leaders of the cult tried to call families as Intelligence Ministrys mercenaries and traitors because they had nothing else to say regarding families presence in front of Camp Ashraf. When the loud speakers were off, they said that they (families) ran away and then they would say that Iraqi soldiers were speaking in the loudspeakers. When they were encountered with voices of defectors via loudspeakers they had to claim, "You wont be executed or imprisoned if you return to Iran but you will have such a hard life ,you will earn so little that you will wish you would have stayed here with us to be safe. We were transferred to temporary Transit Location (Camp Liberty) based on who the leaders chose to move. If one had declared to be volunteer to move to TTL, he should have been called to attend meeting immediately. They feared that he wanted to go there in order to be interviewed and get back to Iran, to denounce them. Thus, leaders of the cult decided who was supposed to move. Members had no choice.

More MEK escapes expose collapse of the cult from within

Iran Interlink, Baghdad, October 21 2012, http://www.iran-interlink.org According to Iraqi news agencies, Mr Hooshang Mirza Ghorbani has managed to escape from the transit camp (Liberty) and has been given protection by the Iraqi security forces in Baghdad. Mr Mirz Ghorbani has spent more than two decades in the camps of Mojahedin Khalq and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Although the MEK leaders claim that American support for this terrorist organisation and their removal from the list of 'friends and foes of the United States' will help them convince their members to continue their terror campaign, but the increasing number of hostages managing to escape from the cult shows that this support has had very little effect on the dismantlement of the cult from within. Nearly 10 years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Mojahedin Khalq terrorist cult under the direct protection of the United States of America continues to deny the hostages access to communication with the outside world and denies them the right to be visited by their families.

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supporters of the MEK in Congress and elsewhere.[10] Divisive Impact on U.S. Politics The MEK has had a divisive impact in the United States. While it has garnered supporters from across the U.S. political landscape, it has also spurred negative reactions from representatives of nearly all political factions. Neoconservatives are a case in point. Several high-profile neocons outlets have praised the group, arguing that it could serve to spearhead regime change efforts in Iran. After news agencies reported in early 2012 that the MEKwith support from Israelwas involved in the assassination of Iranian scientists, a number of neoconservative mouthpieces hailed the group. The Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post ran an editorial stating: Were the MEK to play the critical role in derailing an Iranian bomb, it would be far more deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize than a certain president of the United States we could mention.[11] Similarly minded ideologueslike Raymond Tanter, a member of the Committee on the President Danger have called the MEK the best source for intelligence on Iran's potential violations of the nonproliferation regime, arguing that delisting the group would allow regime change to be on the table in Tehran.[12] At a rally for the group in Paris, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani proclaimed, "Appeasement of dictators leads to war, destruction and the loss of human lives. For your organization to be described as a terrorist organization is just really a disgrace."[13] On the other hand, many neoconservatives view the group with antipathy, largely because they think that an alliance with it is short-sighted with respect to the goal of achieving regime change in Iran. An example is Michael Rubin, who has been sharply critical of MEK supporters. Responding to the news about the MEKs alleged role in assassinating Iranian scientists, Rubin wrote: By utilizing the MEKa group which Iranians view in the same way Americans see John Walker Lindh, the American convicted of aiding the Talibanthe Israelis risk winning some short-term gain at the tremendous expense of rallying Iranians around the regimes flag. A far better strategy would be to facilitate regime change. Not only would the MEK be incapable of that mission, but involving them even cursorily would set the goal back years.[14] Lobbying Campaign Organizations sympathetic to MEK garnered an impressive array of establishment supporters inside Washington to speak in favor of delisting the group. The effort, according to the New York Times, won the support of two former C.I.A. directors, R. James Woolsey and Porter J. Goss; a former F.B.I. director, Louis J. Freeh; a former attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey; President George W. Bushs first homeland security chief, Tom Ridge; President Obamas first national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones; big-name Republicans like the former New York mayor Rudolph W.

Because of the MEKs cult-like organization under leader Maryam Rajavi, its support for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War, and its participation in Saddam Husseins crackdowns on Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, the group has been described by the New York Times as a repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis.[5] U.S. officials have recognized this reputation. While they present themselves as a legitimate democratic group worthy of support, there is universal belief in the administration that they are a cult," one official told CNN after the decision was made to delist the group. "A de-listing is a sign of support or amnesia on our part as to what they have done and it does not mean we have suddenly changed our mind about their current behavior. We don't forget who they were and we don't think they are now who they claim to be, which is alternative to the current regime."[6] Despite its murky reputation, MEK has presented itself to western backers as a popular and democratic Iranian opposition group that could lead the Islamic Republic to democracyoften even referring to Rajavi, who lives in exile in Paris and has never run for office in Iran, as the countrys president-elect.[7] This led some analysts to express concern that the Iranian regime would use the U.S. decision to delist the group as a pretext for a renewed crackdown on democratic and reformist elements within Iran, tying them to the widely despised MEK. For my money, the chances of war with Iran only get a boost insofar as Iranians didn't already assume the worst of U.S. intentions, wrote Ali Gharib at the Daily Beast. As is, the paranoid leadership there believes America is in cahoots with the MEK, or at least they already say as much in their propaganda pleas. The more likely damage from the decision will be done in justifying the ongoing crackdown against the Islamic Republic's internal opposition, including human rights and pro-democracy activists, which will be lent credibility among ordinary Iranians who disdain the MEK.[8] Indeed, there have been reports that the United States has directly aided the MEK in the past, providing assistance that would have been illegal given the groups terrorist designation. In April 2012, for example, journalist Seymour Hersh reported that U.S. special forces had provided communications and weapons training to MEK members in the Nevada desert sometime from 2005 to 2007, considerably improving the groups capabilities. The MEK was a total joke, a Pentagon consultant told Hersh, and now its a real network inside Iran. How did the MEK get so much more efficient? Part of it is the training in Nevada. Part of it is logistical support in Kurdistan, and part of it is inside Iran. MEK now has a capacity for efficient operations that it never had before.[9] Some analysts warned that the U.S. decision to delist the MEK could cause U.S.-Iranian relations to deteriorate even further. The decision will no doubt make the Iranian leadership even more distrustful of U.S. intentions regarding the future of Iran, particularly given the congressional support for the MEK to spearhead regime change, wrote Iran expert Farideh Farhi. Less trust will make compromise less likely, presumably a preferred outcome for the high profile

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Giuliani and Democrats like the former Vermont governor Howard Dean; and even the former top counterterrorism official of the State Department, Dell L. Dailey.[15] Mitchell Reiss, a top foreign policy advisor to Mitt Romney/ Paul Ryan presidential campaign, also spoke on behalf of the group.[16] A potential explanation for this diverse list of supporters is the large speaking fees the MEK network has offered to big-name public figures. Your speech agent calls, and says you get $20,000 to speak for 20 minutes, said a State Department official quoted by the Christian Science Monitor. They will send a private jet, you get $25,000 more when you are done, and they will send a team to brief you on what to say.[17] Pro-MEK individuals and organizations also reportedly donated thousands of dollars to the campaigns of several sitting members of Congress, including Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Bob Filner, Ted Poe, Mike Rogers, and Dana Rohrabacher.[18] Underlying MEKs more mainstream backing has been a bedrock of support from foreign policy hawks. In addition to Woolsey and other former Bush administration officials, the group has enjoyed the avid backing of Iran hawks like former ambassador John Bolton and groups like the Iran Policy Committee (IPC), a right-wing U.S.-based outfit whose putative goal is empowering Iranians for regime change. In a 2005 policy paper, IPC placed the delisting of MEK at the forefront of its proposals for U.S. policy toward Iran. The "continued designation since 1997 of the main Iranian opposition group, Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department assures Tehran that regime change is off the table, wrote the reports authors. Removing the MEKs terrorist designation would be a tangible signal to Tehran and to the Iranian people that a new option is implicitly on the tableregime change.[19] MEKs critics have likened the organizations advocacy campaign to that of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an Iraqi exile group led by Ahmed Chalabi that worked to drum up U.S. support for an invasion of Iraq in the 1990s and early 2000s. By presenting itself to Western supporters as an Iraqi government-in-waiting, INC enabled Iraq hawks in the United States to claim that there was Iraqi support for the U.S. action. For Iran hawks, write Ali Fatemi and Karim Pakravan of the National Iranian American Council, Maryam Rajavi, the MEK leader and self-proclaimed president of Iran, is their new Chalabi.[20] IPC in particular has embodied the link between proMEK groups and pro-INC groups. A 2010 investigation by the U.S. foreign policy blog LobeLog found that through 2006, IPC shared an address, accountants, and some staff with multiple organizations that either fronted for or had direct ties to the INC, even sharing staff members with those groups. Some of those ties have continued through today.[21]

History Founded in 1963, MEK was one of the many Iranian factions that supported the overthrow of the shah in 1979. [22] However, according to a report by the Christian Science Monitor, it was the only one that used violence against Americans in the run-up to the revolution, launching a string of assassinations and attacks against American military and diplomatic officers in Iran in the 1970s. The group was expelled from Iran in 1981 when it fell out of favor with Ayatollah Khomeini in a post-revolutionary power struggle.[23] Since then, it has launched thousands of attacks against Iranians it has deemed agents of the regime, peaking at a rate of three assassinations per day in the 1980s, and staged high-profile raids on Iranian diplomatic offices all over the worldincluding an orchestrated set of attacks on 12 diplomatic facilities in 10 countries on a single day in 1992.[24] In the mid-1980s, MEK settled in Iraq as a guest of Saddam Hussein, who offered the group use of Camp Ashraf, an encampment and army base north of Baghdad. There, not only did MEK fight on the Iraqi side of the IranIraq war, but it also helped Saddam crush the CIA-instigated Iraqi Kurdish and Shiite uprisings that came on the tail of the 1991 Gulf War, leading to the precipitous erosion of its support in Iran and Iraq alike.[25] MEKs fighters at Ashraf were disarmed by the United States following the fall of Saddams government in 2003. In the following years, the camp was subject to occasionally violent raids by the new Iraqi government, which sparked concerns about further violence or a humanitarian crisis when it ordered the camp closed by the end of 2011. Although the Ashraf issue is separate from the issue of MEKs status as a terrorist organization, MEKs backers in the West used the conditions at the camp to garner sympathy for the groups broader agenda in Washington and to argue that its continued listing as a terrorist group is the cause of its mistreatment.[26] MEKs lobbying efforts were foreshadowed in a 1994 report by the U.S. State Department, which concluded that the group was unlikely to be serious about its democratic overtures. According to the Christian Science Monitor: Noting the MEKs dedication to armed struggle; the fact that they deny or distort sections of their history, such as the use of violence; the dictatorial methods of their leadership; and the cult-like behavior of its members, the State Dept. concluded that the MEKs 29-year record of behavior does not substantiate its capability or intention to be democratic. That report describes tactics that foreshadow the MEKs lobbying campaign today, 16 years later. It notes a formidable Mojahidin outreach program, which solicits the support of prominent public figures, and the common practice to collect statements issued by prominent individuals.[27] The group formally renounced the use of violence in 2001, but an FBI investigation found MEK members to be actively involved in planning and executing acts of terrorism as recently as 2004. In February 2012, NBC News reported

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allies/. [15] Scott Shane, For Obscure Iranian Exile Group, Broad Support in U.S., New York Times, November 26, 2011, http:// www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/us/politics/lobbying-support-foriranian-exile-group-crosses-party-lines.html?pagewanted=all. [16] Eli Clifton, Romney Adviser Advocating For Controversial Iranian Terrorist Group, ThinkProgress, August 23, 2011,http:// thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/23/302480/romney-adviser -mek/. [17] Scott Peterson, Iranian group's big-money push to get off US terrorist list, Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011, p. 3, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0808/ Iranian-group-s-big-money-push-to-get-off-US-terrorist-list/% 28page%29/3 [18] Chris McGreal, MEK decision: multimillion-dollar campaign led to removal from terror list, Guardian, September 21, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/21/iran-mek-groupremoved-us-terrorism-list. [19] Iran Policy Committee, U.S. Policy Options for Iran, February 10, 2005, http://www.iranpolicy.org/uploadedFiles/ USPolicyOptions_for_Iran_Feb2005.pdf. [20] Fatemi and Karim Pakravan, War With Iran? US Neocons Aim to Repeat Chalabi-Style Swindle Ali, Truthout, July 15, 2011. [21] Ali Gharib and Eli Clifton, Neocon Iran Policy Committee tied to disgraced Iraqi National Congress, LobeLog, September 10, 2010, http://www.lobelog.com/neocon-iran-policy-committeetied-to-disgraced-iraqi-national-congress/. [22] U.S. State Department, Country Reports on Terrorsm 2010: Chapter Six: Foreign Terrorist Organizations, August 2011, http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2010/index.htm. [23] U.S. State Department, Country Reports on Terrorsm 2010: Chapter Six: Foreign Terrorist Organizations, August 2011, http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2010/index.htm. [24] Scott Peterson, Iranian group's big-money push to get off US terrorist list, Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011, p. 7, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0808/ Iranian-group-s-big-money-push-to-get-off-US-terrorist-list/% 28page%29/7. [25] Scott Peterson, Iranian group's big-money push to get off US terrorist list, Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011, p. 8, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0808/ Iranian-group-s-big-money-push-to-get-off-US-terrorist-list/% 28page%29/8 [26] See, for example, Eli Clifton, Defending MEK, Mukasey, Ridge & Freeh Attack Obama For Hastily Exiting Iraq, While Admitting Hes Trying To Stay, ThinkProgress, August 15, 2011, http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/15/296188/ mukasey-ridge-freeh-obama-iraq-mek/. [27] Scott Peterson, Iranian group's big-money push to get off US terrorist list, Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011, p. 8, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0808/ Iranian-group-s-big-money-push-to-get-off-US-terrorist-list/% 28page%29/8 [28] Richard Engel and Robert Windrem, Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran's nuclear scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News, NBCNews.com, February 9, 2012, http:// rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/02/08/10354553-israelteams-with-terror-group-to-kill-irans-nuclear-scientists-us-officialstell-nbc-news.q

that the Israeli government had coordinated with MEK to launch a series of assassinations against Iranian nuclear scientists.[28] The groups delisting may open the door to future cooperation with the United States as well. SOURCES
[1] Elise Labott, Clinton to remove Iranian exile group from terror list, CNN.com, September 21, 2012,http:// security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/21/clinton-to-de-list-iranianexile-group-from-terror-list/. [2] U.S. State Department, Country Reports on Terrorsm 2010: Chapter Six: Foreign Terrorist Organizations, August 2011,http:// www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2010/index.htm. [3] Barbara Slavin, Mass Tragedy Feared as Closure of MEK Camp Looms, Right Web, December 19, 2011,http:// rightweb.irc-online.org/articles/display/ mass_tragedy_feared_as_closure_of_mek_camp_looms. [4] Elise Labott, Clinton to remove Iranian exile group from terror list, CNN.com, September 21, 2012,http:// security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/21/clinton-to-de-list-iranianexile-group-from-terror-list/. [5] Scott Shane, For Obscure Iranian Exile Group, Broad Support in U.S., New York Times, November 26, 2011,http:// www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/us/politics/lobbying-support-foriranian-exile-group-crosses-party-lines.html?pagewanted=all. [6] Elise Labott, Clinton to remove Iranian exile group from terror list, CNN.com, September 21, 2012,http:// security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/21/clinton-to-de-list-iranianexile-group-from-terror-list/. [7] See Matt Duss, The MEK Are Not Irans Democratic Opposition, Middle East Progress, July 19, 2011,http:// middleeastprogress.org/2011/07/the-mek-are-not-iransdemocratic-opposition/. [8] Ali Gharib, Enemy Of My Enemy: Delisting The MEK, Daily Beast, September 25, 2012,http://www.thedailybeast.com/ articles/2012/09/25/enemy-of-my-enemy-delisting-themek.html. [9] Seymour Hersh, Our Men in Iran, New Yorker, April 6, 2012,http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/ newsdesk/2012/04/mek.html. [10] Quoted in Jasmin Ramsey, Analysts Respond To Expected US Decision To Delist MEK From FTO List, LobeLog, September 22, 2012, http://www.lobelog.com/analysts-respond-to-expectedus-decision-to-delist-mek-from-fto-list/. [11] New York Post, Loose Lips, February 10, 2012, http:// www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/ loose_lips_7xvSwHsWqSoIjyXIWl8nmI. [12] See Right Web, Raymond Tanter profile, http:// www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Tanter_Raymond. [13] Edward Cody, GOP leaders criticize Obama's Iran policy in rally for opposition group, Washington Post, December 23, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2010/12/22/AR2010122205180.html. [14] Michael Rubin, Re: Israels Iranian Allies of Convenience, Commentary Magazine, Contentions blog, February 13, 2012, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/02/13/israel-iran-

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commander of NATO; Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI; three former directors of the CIA Michael Hayden, James Woolsey and Porter Goss; Rudolph Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City; former UN Ambassador John Bolton; General Hugh Shelton, former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002; and many others. Top Washington lawyers and lobbyists made the case for the terrorist group as well: Akin Gump, Strauss Hauer & Feld, Patton Boggs and others. Robert Strauss, of the firm of the same name, was US Ambassador to the Soviet Union during the critical months of August 2, 1991, through December 26, 1991. A senior member of the firm Tobi Gati was also head of the intelligence branch of the US State Department. When speaking about terrorist groups, one might think of MEK as a ragtag bunch of cutthroats in shreds and tatters, confined to an unsanitary tent city. The truth is nothing of the sort. Watch this report by CNNs Michael Ware dating back to 2007: You will see a marching army in crisp brand-new white-and-blue and khaki uniforms, entering a spacious parade ground framed by sculptures of lions. Camp Ashraf itself is one of the best-kept military facilities in Iraq and a sprawling city of 4,000 people, with shopping centers and hospitals, gardens, monuments, fountains and illuminations quite unexpected in the wartorn deserts of Iraq. The MEK is also armed with more than 2,000 well-maintained tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft guns and armored personnel carriers. Its supplies are guarded by US military police, and the camp itself is guarded by the American military. Indeed, The coalition remains deeply committed to the security and rights of protected people of Ashraf, US Major General Gardner said, according to a Headquarters Multinational Force Iraq document dated March 11, 2006. Michael Ware calls the MEK the US officially protected terrorists. Another film of Australian origin shows Camp Ashrafs own parliament and hundreds of tanks on the camps parade ground. Well-versed in American political mores, the MEKs leadership says the group is pro-democracy. However, even the New York Times disagrees: In the middle of the 2011 de-listing campaign, it described MEK as a repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis. Totalitarian cult is indeed the most frequent label applied to the MEK by people who come in contact with

the group. And American support for MEK is not limited to military protection. Seymour Hersh, in his New Yorker pieceOur Men in Iran? revealed that beginning in 2005, MEK fighters were trained in Nevada by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Why is Washington backing the MEK? As General Shelton said at a conference in February 2011, When you look at what the MEK stands for, when they are antinuclear,separation of church and state, individual rights, MEK is obviously the way Iran needs to go. By placing the MEK on the FTO [Foreign Terrorist Organizations] list we have weakened the support of the best organized internal resistance group to the most terrorist-oriented anti-Western world, anti-democratic regime in the region. In an interview with Germanys WDR TV back in 2005, exCIA operative Ray McGovern explained the logic: Why the U.S. cooperates with organizations like the Mujahedin, I think, is because that they are local, and because they are ready to work for us. Previously, we considered them a terrorist organization. And they exactly are. But they are now our terrorists and we now don't hesitate to send them into Iran . for the usual secret service activities: attacking sensors, in order to supervise the Iranian nuclear program, mark targets for air attacks, and perhaps establishing secret camps to control the military locations in Iran. And also a little sabotage. Karen Kwiatkowski, formerly with the Department of Defense, makes a long story short for WDR TV: MEK is ready to do things over which we would be ashamed, and over which we try to keep silent. But for such tasks we'll use them. Now is the time for Russia and the world community to take active political measures preventing the United States from launching another proxy war in the Middle East. The MEK is much better trained and prepared for war than the Syrian rebels were at the beginning of the conflict, or even today. The MEK has all the necessary capabilities to become the military arm of an American attack against Iran. This time unlike in Syria the world should not ignore the march to war, and must take steps to prevent it from happening again. -Veronika Krasheninnikova, Director General of the Institute for Foreign Policy Research and Initiatives in Moscow, for RT

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http://rt.com/news/iran-mek-us-military-237/

Mujahedin-e Khalq: Americas protected terrorists gearing up against Iran (Op-Ed)

Why is Washington backing the MEK? As General Shelton said at a conference in February 2011, When you look at what the MEK stands for, when they are antinuclear, separation of church and state, individual rights, MEK is obviously the way Iran needs to go. By placing the MEK on the FTO [Foreign Terrorist Organizations] list we have weakened the support of the best organized internal resistance group to the most terrorist-oriented anti-Western world, anti-democratic regime in the region.
Russia Today, Published: 26 October, 2012, 13:02 Unsatisfied in "crippling" Iran with sanctions, the US looks to be set for active operations there - and already has an in: a group called the Mujahedin-e Khalq, which in the near future could become the Persian equivalent of the Free Syrian Army. -On September 21, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton passed Public Notice 8050, de-listing the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the State Departments Specially Designated Global Terrorist list, effective September 28.

Members of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq What is MEK? Mujahedin-e Khalq is an Iranian Islamic militant Organization (MKO) (Image from vkb.isvg.org) organization in exile that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since its inception in 1965 in Iran, the group Terrorist register gathered some high-caliber US conducted assassinations of US military personnel and civilians supporters including General James Jones, working in Iran in the 1970s, jubilantly supported the takeover of the President Obama's National Security Advisor from US embassy in Tehran in 1979 and opposed the release of American 2009 to 2010; Bill Richardson, Energy Secretary personnel, calling for their execution instead, fought against the and UN ambassador in the Clinton administration Islamic Republic together with Saddam Hussein during the Iraq-Iran and Obama's Special Envoy to North Korea; Tom War (1980-1988) and set up headquarters in Iraq at Camp Ashraf. Ridge, the first Secretary of Homeland Security; In recent years, according to various sources including NBC, MEK General Wesley Clark, former supreme teamed up with the Israeli secret service to kill Iranian nuclear scientists. NBC reported that US officials confirmed that the Obama Continued to page 7 administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement. www.aawaassociation.com In 1994, the State Department sent a damning 41-page report to Congress on why the MEK is a terrorist organization; that . UP TO DATE designation was enacted in 1997. The report concluded: It is no NO. 48 coincidence that the only government in the world that supports the OCTOBER 2012 Mujahedin politically and financially is the totalitarian regime of Publication of Association AAWA e.V. Saddam Hussein. Well, the MEKs mission to overthrow Irans leadership has not changed since, but the US agenda has: In a Responsable: vertiginous about-face, Washington became the powerful protector of Dipl.-Ing. Ali-A. Rastgou the Mujahedin-e Khalq. Postfach 90 31 73
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Over the past few years, a formidable fundraising operation and campaign to de-list MEK from the Specially Designated Global

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