The recruit: How did this girl go from Toronto to a terrorist training camp in Iraq?

National Post ^ | 2006-09-23 | Stewart Bell

[Clive]

A National Post investigation has found the banned terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq recruited teens in Canada and sent them abroad to overthrow the Iranian government by force. Today, we begin a five-part series about a Canadian family that got deeply involved with the guerrillas -- and now regrets it.

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RICHMOND HILL - The video playing on the 36-inch Hitachi television in Mustafa Mohammady's living room in the suburbs north of Toronto shows his daughter Somayeh in a paramilitary uniform, her hair tucked under a khaki scarf that's knotted at the neck.

The home video has come to the Mohammadys from the plains north of Baghdad, where their daughter lives in a guerrilla compound called Camp Ashraf, the headquarters of the Organization of the Freedom Fighters of the Iranian People.

A student at Etobicoke Collegiate Institute, Somayeh dropped out of Grade 10 to join the rebels, and for the past several years her parents have done little else except try to get her back to Canada. They have written pleading letters to guerrilla commanders and the Canadian government. They travelled to Iraq four times.

But she is there still.

"Her brain's been washed," her younger brother Morteza said. "The Canadian government needs to take her out of there. We know my sister is not a terrorist."

The Mohammadys are nervous and sleepless with worry, but as much as the parents are torn up that their daughter is a member of what the Canadian government calls a terrorist organization, in arguably the most dangerous country in the world, they also know they are partly to blame because she went to the camp with their consent.

"I trusted them," Mustafa, himself a former activist in the group, said of the guerrillas, better known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK. "At the time I sent my daughter, I trusted them.... I thought this organization respect the human rights. I never thought they would do the same thing [Ayatollah] Khomeini did to his people."

An investigation by the National Post has found that the MEK sent recruiters to Canada to enlist teenagers and send them to Camp Ashraf, where they were armed and trained to overthrow the Iranian government by force.

One Iranian group in Toronto, the Centre for Thought, Dialogue and Human Rights in Iran, says three boys and seven girls under the age of 18 were sent to Ashraf.

The teens were sent from Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. Dozens of others older than 18 have attended the camp.

To date, only one Canadian is known to have returned to Canada from Ashraf. The rest remain at the camp to this day, either unable or unwilling to leave, and Somayeh is among them.

The Mohammady family fled Tehran after it degenerated into a rigid dictatorship of mullahs. Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 Islamic revolution had broad support at first, but disenchantment soon set in.

The MEK, led by Massoud Rajavi, had been one of the strongest supporters of the revolt to depose the Shah, who preceded Khomeini's rule. But when Khomeini began a crackdown on opposition groups, the MEK turned against the new regime and began assassinating key government officials and hijacking Iranian airplanes. In some cases, it used suicide bombers.

In Tehran, Mustafa was active in the MEK, although he said he was never a member, only a supporter who distributed literature and tried to convince others to join. But his family was deeply involved.

His brother-in-law, Hadi Hamzeh Dolabi, joined the MEK but was arrested in 1981 and executed by Khomeini's Revolutionary Guards three years later. A sister-in-law, Hourieh Hamzieh, joined the MEK as well, but was killed in 1988.

Under surveillance and fearing for his life, Mustafa fled with his wife and children to Turkey in 1992. Eighteen months later, Ottawa recognized the Mohammadys as refugees, and in September, 1994, they flew to Amsterdam and then Toronto.

For the first two months, they lived in a refugee shelter in Scarborough, but as their first Canadian winter set in, they found their own apartment in Etobicoke.

In the spring, Mustafa went to a community event to celebrate Noruz, the Iranian New Year. Some activists who ran a support network for the MEK in Canada were there and they invited Mustafa to their office in Toronto.

From the outside, it looked like just an ordinary home in a residential neighbourhood. But inside, everyone wore MEK uniforms, and the walls were decorated with MEK flags and portraits of Rajavi and his wife, Maryam.

The house served as the Canadian headquarters of the Mujahedin's international support network. From this unassuming house, the MEK organized protests and raised money. But it was also recruiting for Camp Ashraf, the 36-square-kilometre military encampment that Saddam Hussein had set aside for the MEK in Iraq to stage cross-border attacks against Iran.

Mustafa watched propaganda films at the centre with his wife and children and attended group discussions.

Eager to see the overthrow of the Iranian regime he blamed for the deaths of his family members, he began to spend a few hours a day collecting money for the cause.

He went door to door, or stood on a street corner near Dundas and Spadina. He would show photos of crying children, and tell stories about how their parents had been executed by the Iranian regime. On Saturdays and Sundays, his daughter Somayeh would accompany him on his rounds. She was 13, maybe 14 at the time.

In 1997, the MEK began a major recruiting drive. The fighting ranks were ageing, and young blood was needed to rejuvenate the People's Army. During the 1991 Gulf War, MEK members at Camp Ashraf had sent their children abroad for their safety. Some of them came to Canada to stay with aunts and uncles. The recruiters were tasked with bringing them back, along with as many other young Iranian expatriates as they could get.

The recruiter who came to Canada was a petite woman with glasses and a headscarf who went by the name Mazia. She began to pay a lot of attention to Somayeh. They talked about Somayeh's favourite aunt, the one who had died fighting with the Mujahedin almost a decade earlier. Mazia showed Somayeh photographs of Camp Ashraf and described it as a "very nice place."

Mazia convinced Somayeh to attend a demonstration in Washington, D.C., and on June 30, 1997, she crossed the border and travelled to the Pirayesh, the MEK's secret base in Sleepy Hollow, Va. Somayeh watched videos of Ashraf and met the head of the U.S. Mujahedin recruiting network, Sima, who offered to send her to Iraq to visit her aunt's grave.

Somayeh returned to Toronto and started Grade 10, but she dropped out to join the MEK. She was only 17 years old, but Sima told the Mohammadys their daughter would be safely returned to them after a month.

Mustafa had a favourable opinion of the MEK back then. The security era ushered in by 9/11 was still three years away, and the Mujahedin had not yet been outlawed as a terrorist group.

"We thought they were a nationalist group that wanted to topple the Iranian government," he said. As for Ashraf, he thought it was "like other camps that were run by nice people. So I consented for my daughter to go there."

Somayeh said her parents paid for her airfare. Mustafa denied that.

"I didn't have the money," he said. The MEK's U.S. office bought the ticket, he insisted.

"I think the purpose was just to deceive some young people and get them there," he said. "At that time, I did not know." He said he thought she would be like an exchange student.

"I thought it was just another program."

In February, 1998, Somayeh flew from New York to Amsterdam, then transferred to a flight to Amman, Jordan. From there, she went by road to Baghdad and then travelled north on a highway for 65 kilometres to a gate where palm trees and Iranian flags marked the entrance to the rebel base.

For the next decade, Camp Ashraf would be her home.

DECODING THE MUJAHEDIN-E KHALQ ORGANIZATION

Mujahedin-e Khalq: "The Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) is an Iranian terrorist organization that was based in Iraq until recently. It subscribes to an eclectic ideology that combines its own interpretation of Shiite Islamism with Marxist principles. The group aspires to overthrow the current regime in Iran and establish a democratic, socialist Islamic republic. This Islamic socialism can only be attained through the destruction of the existing regime and the elimination of Western influence, described as 'Westoxication.' To achieve this Islamic ideology, the use of physical force, armed struggle or jihad is necessary. Besides having had an alliance with Saddam Hussein, the organization has or had ties with Amal [from which Hezbollah originated], the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Al Fatah and other Palestinian factions. The MEK is even suspected of past collusion with the regime of the Taliban in Afghanistan." Source: "Currently listed entities," Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, (www.psepc-sppcc.gc.ca/prg/ns/le/cle-en.asp).

MONDAY: Part II

In the second part of the series, Somayeh's brother Mohammad joins her at Camp Ashraf.

Ran with fact box "Decoding the Mujahedin-E Khalq Organization" which has been appended to the story.

[Clive]

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[BlackVeil]

A grim story. Anyone with connections to the Iranian community needs to beware of the MEK.

I heard a similar story several years ago, from a Shia clergyman and his family who were living in Paris. He was Iranian, his wife Pakistani, and they had teenage daughters.

They befriended a young lady who said she was a refugee from Iran, and gave out tales of woe and persecution. She was not living with them, but they arranged accomodation nearby, and she had all her meals with the family, and they helped her.

The Iranian lady paid particular attention to the young daughers. Then, the parents were shocked to learn, when one of the daughters spoke to them, that she had told them they could go away with her, and live with MEK people. She was encouraging them to get passports in secret, she said she knew a way. Then, their mystery visitor disappeared. She seemed to know that she had been discovered (maybe one of the other daughters told her).

Very similar to the modus operandi in this article:

The recruiter who came to Canada was a petite woman with glasses and a headscarf who went by the name Mazia. She began to pay a lot of attention to Somayeh.

They know how to recruit youth - especially young girls.

[PGalt]

Interesting. Thanks.

[Donna Lee Nardo]

Ping if you have not already seen this.

[dyed_in_the_wool]

It subscribes to an eclectic ideology that combines its own interpretation of Shiite Islamism with Marxist principles. The group aspires to overthrow the current regime in Iran and establish a democratic, socialist Islamic republic. This Islamic socialism can only be attained through the destruction of the existing regime and the elimination of Western influence, described as 'Westoxication.'

Of course, they should realize that Marxism is a western influence, but I"m guessing they're not that smart.

[sauropod]

review

[RaceBannon]

le bump, but not in a French way...

[Westbrook]

Of course, they should realize that Marxism is a western influence, but I"m guessing they're not that smart.

Yes, not only is Marxism "Westoxification", but so are electricity, radio, automobiles, trains, airplanes, running water, hot water, flush toilets, medicine, nuclear technology, telephones, chemical explosives, firearms etc, etc, etc.

I would love to see these morons give up ALL Western influences and return to the stone age from which they emerged.

.

[raybbr]

"Her brain's been washed," her younger brother Morteza said

With apologies to our good Canadian friends but that wasn't much of a washing. From liberal mush to jihad mush.

[LongElegantLegs]

As for Ashraf, he thought it was "like other camps that were run by nice people. So I consented for my daughter to go there."

Yeah, 'Camp Ashraf' does sound an awful lot like 'Happy Little Elf Camp'.

[blam]

"At the time I sent my daughter"

All I need to know.

[freeangel]

So he sent his daughter and now "the Canadian government needs to get her out"? Sounds like a perfect democrat recruit to me.

[fanfan]

Canada ping.

Please send me a FReepmail to get on or off this Canada ping list.

[Biscuit85]

Why do the MEK members wear head scarves?

[Ready4Freddy]

All evidence to the contrary...

...her younger brother Morteza said. "...We know my sister is not a terrorist."

[humint]

RICHMOND HILL - The video playing on the 36-inch Hitachi television in Mustafa Mohammady's living room in the suburbs north of Toronto shows his daughter Somayeh in a paramilitary uniform, her hair tucked under a khaki scarf that's knotted at the neck. The home video has come to the Mohammadys from the plains north of Baghdad, where their daughter lives in a guerrilla compound called Camp Ashraf, the headquarters of the Organization of the Freedom Fighters of the Iranian People. A student at Etobicoke Collegiate Institute, Somayeh dropped out of Grade 10 to join the rebels, and for the past several years her parents have done little else except try to get her back to Canada. They have written pleading letters to guerrilla commanders and the Canadian government. They travelled to Iraq four times. But she is there still. "Her brain's been washed," her younger brother Morteza said. "The Canadian government needs to take her out of there. We know my sister is not a terrorist." The Mohammadys are nervous and sleepless with worry, but as much as the parents are torn up that their daughter is a member of what the Canadian government calls a terrorist organization, in arguably the most dangerous country in the world, they also know they are partly to blame because she went to the camp with their consent.

[SuziQ]

This must have been one of the groups that was snookered by the students and young adults supporting Khomeini who invaded and took over the American Embassy in Tehran, 1979.

There had been a huge demonstration planned that day, and the students who hewed to the Ayotollah's line wore placards around their necks bearing his picture. That way, they would know immediately who was with them, and who wasn't. There were folks who stood at the gates, after they were initially breached, who kept out all the other groups, and only let in the Khomeini supporters. They didn't want any of the other groups, especially the secular ones like the MEK, and other groups from the non-Islamic universities, stealing their thunder and being the ones who got the distinction of 'beating the West'.

[SuziQ]

Oh, and the present president of Iran, Mr. Iwannajihad, was one of the students involved in the takeover of the Embassy.

[BlackVeil]

Why do the MEK members wear head scarves?

That's a good point. They pretend to be a secular group, but they are affliates of a Shia sect, under the leadership of the Rajavi family. The reject Khomeni and all his works, but are religious fundamentalists of a different stripe.