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No news is at hand in recent days on the fate of 250 members of the terrorist Mujahideen Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/NCR-Iran.org/Iranfocus.com and many more phony names by MKO, the most hated people among Iranians) who have been urging to leave Iraq and return to Iran as a priority, according to former MKO officials who have fled to Europe from Iraq. The former MKO officials believe that probably the group might have either been trapped in MKO detention camps inside the US army protected garrisons in Iraq or might have been subject to organizational duels and been killed. The commander of...

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 20 (Reuters) - The United States can designate foreign organizations as terrorist groups and bar Americans from financially backing them, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday. "Leaving the determination of whether a group is a 'foreign terrorist organization' to the executive branch ... is both a reasonable and a constitutional way to make such determinations," Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote for a three-judge panel. "The Constitution does not forbid Congress from requiring individuals, whether they agree with the executive branch determination or not, to refrain from furnishing material assistance to designated terrorist organizations." The ruling by the...

PARIS, 19 Oct. (IPS) On the eve of the trial of the toppled Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, some former members of the Mojahedeen Khalq Organsation (MKO) demanded that the leader of the outlawed Organisation and some of his close associates be also tried for “crimes against both the Iraqi and Iranian peoples”. “The toppled regime of Saddam Hussein actively supported international terrorism and committed crimes against Iraqi and Iranian peoples and the Mojaheedin Khalq Organisation, led by Mas’oud Rajavi, were at the top of the list of these terrorist organizations”, Behzad Alishahi, a former member of the group said in...

An Iranian group has killed American civilians, allied itself with Saddam Hussein, and holds a spot on the State Department’s terrorist watch list. So why might it become America’s newest friend in the Middle East? Hint: Tehran. In August 2002, intelligence reports revealed secret nuclear facilities in the Iranian cities of Natanz and Arak. The revelation left officials in Tehran speechless, in large part because the evidence was not gathered by the United States or any of its allies. Rather, the courier of such sensitive intelligence was the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), a decades-old Iranian dissident group. In most cases, dissident...

I. Summary The Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) is an armed Iranian opposition group that was formed in 1965. An urban guerrilla group fighting against the government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, it was an active participant in the anti-monarchy struggle that resulted in the 1979 Iranian revolution.1 After the revolution, the MKO expanded its organizational infrastructure and recruited many new members. However it was excluded from participating in power sharing arrangements, and the new revolutionary government under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini forced it underground after it instigated an armed uprising against the government in June 1981. The majority of its...

The bomb had been detonated in Tehran's central Imam Hussein Square. Reports of the number of dead ranged from one to 20. Evidently, this was not a weapon of great sophistication. However, four simultaneous blasts in Ahvaz, which had killed as many as 30 people, had evidently been the work of sophisticated extremists, with most suspicion focusing on the Mujahedeen-e Khalq Organization, MKO (also called MEK). Among those with whom I spoke, in and out of government, the consensus was that the bombings in Tehran and Ahvaz were intended to deter voting in the presidential election. MKO, formed in the...

All the information the Mojahedeen provides the western media is pure lies and fabricated to discredit the Iranian regime and help the United States and Israel to put more pressures on Iran”, a former senior member of the outlawed, Baghdad-based Mojahedeen Khalq Organisation (MKO) told Iran Press Service. Referring to recent press conferences held by the MKO spokesmen in various capitals, including Paris, Vienna, London, Berlin and Washington “revealing” secret nuclear sites or the number of centrifuges undeclared to the international nuclear watchdog, the source who asked for anonymity said the MKO has no information about Iran’s sensitive military projects...

Over the past few years, influential officials in the American government have utilized information received by news agencies associated with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) in order to persuade the American government that Iran poses a security threat to American interests. The end sum of these objectives is to force a military confrontation between the two governments, wherein MKO confidants and proxy organizations would replace existing political structures in Iran. In order to accomplish this task the MKO is engaged in an intensive campaign to force governments to remove their terrorist label in order to gain both political influence and...

The U.S. Government is now openly supporting the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, an Iranian resistance movement designated as terrorist organization by the US State Department. On June 20th of this year, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq held a conference at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, which is where many foreign journalists stay and is under the full protection of the U.S. Army. I was in the area of the hotel that day, and saw at least 10 U.S. tanks heading in the direction of the hotel to provide additional security. I knew of the conference in advance, because of a report issued to all NGO's working...

The famous investigative journalist Akbar Ganji is said to be dying. He has been urgently transferred from his cell in Evin to a hospital in Tehran. On July 16 it was the 36th day of his hunger strike as a protest not just against his own and his fellow-prisoners’ illegal detention, but also against the undemocratic Islamic Republic and its unelected Supreme Leader-for-Life, a harsh dictator with absolute power. Ganji’s hunger strike is a scream for the world’s attention for the persistent violations of the most fundamental human rights in his country. And for the fate of the vast number...

U.S. Policy Options for Iran: Sham Elections, Disinformation Campaign, Human Rights Abuses, and Regime Change Excerpt from Executive Summary While the Bush administration has been reluctant to adopt an unambiguous policy of regime change for Iran, the outcome of the Iranian electoral process, disinformation campaign, and violations of human rights require adoption of an explicit regime change policy for Iran.  An ambiguous American policy was somewhat effective prior to the June 2005 Iranian elections. That policy allowed Washington to support the European diplomatic initiative toward Iran without fear of being blamed for sabotaging negotiations by threatening the regime’s existence....

Minister of Information Ali Younesi said that US is involved in forming networks for sabotage against Iran citing Abdul Malik terrorist networks as an example. "We have evidences to support link between Abdul Malik terrorist group with US and Israeli intelligence services," he said. "It is likely that US and Israeli intelligence services have infiltrated into certain terrorist networks in Arab states including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and even European states. It is not unlikely that what happened in London is from that category," Younesi said. He said that certain extremist elements of al-Qaeda especially the financial supporters of the...

An armed Iranian opposition group in exile, the Mojahedin Khalq Organization, has subjected dissident members to torture and prolonged solitary confinement, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 28-page report, “No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the MKO Camps,” details how dissident members of the shadowy Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) were tortured, beaten and held in solitary confinement for years at military camps in Iraq after they criticized the group’s policies and undemocratic practices, or indicated that they planned to leave the organization. The report is based on the direct testimonies of a dozen former MKO members,...

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Congress has been examining the prospect of granting U.S. support to an Iranian opposition group on the State Department's terrorist list. Congressional sources said several key House and Senate members have been discussing the removal of the Mujahadeen Khalq, or MEK, from the State Department's list of terrorist groups. They said the United States has not obtained evidence of MEK's involvement in terrorism for nearly 30 years. ''Work with the group that the regime dislikes the most,'' Raymond Tanter, co-founder of the Iran Policy Committee and former National Security Council member, said. Tanter, a former Reagan administration...

US State Department Report Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service. The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, by Kenneth Katzman. Washington, Nov 1992. 6 p. Doc. call no.: M-U 42953-1 no.92-824F Announcement of US about Mojahedin United States Department of State Washington, D.C 20520 UNCLASSIFIED DECL: OADR Dear Mr. Chairman: In accordance with section 523 of the FY 1994-95 Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Public Law No. 103-236, I am pleased to submit on behalf of the secretary of state the report, "people's Mojahedin of Iran." The Administration has welcomed the opportunity to conduct a comprehensive review of the people's Mojahedin of...

-snip- In a document scheduled for public release this week, Human Rights Watch alleges that the Iranian exile group known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) has a history of cult-like practices that include forcing members to divorce their spouses and to engage in extended self-criticism sessions. More dramatically, the report states, former MEK members told Human Rights Watch that when they protested MEK policies or tried to leave the organization, they were arrested, in some cases violently abused and in other instances imprisoned. -snip- while the MEK has occasionally come up with accurate information about Iran's nukes, the group has come up...

(Paris, May 19, 2005) -- An armed Iranian opposition group in exile, the Mojahedin Khalq Organization, has subjected dissident members to torture and prolonged solitary confinement, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 28-page report, “No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the MKO Camps,” details how dissident members of the shadowy Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) were tortured, beaten and held in solitary confinement for years at military camps in Iraq after they criticized the group’s policies and undemocratic practices, or indicated that they planned to leave the organization. The report is based on the direct testimonies of...

Iran's 'terrorists' helped disclose nuke program By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY 4/14/2005 TEHRAN, Iran — Tall and handsome, Arash Sametipour could be living a very different life in Northern Virginia if he hadn't joined the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). As U.S. troops watch, an MEK member, right, guards a road to the group's training camp in Iraq. By Brennan Linsley, AP Sametipour, 29, of Burke, Va., says he became involved in the Iranian opposition group in the late 1990s when he developed a crush on one of its members. In love and convinced that the group was working for the good...

Thousands attend Iran convention in US Capital Iran Focus Fri. 15 Apr 2005 Washington, D.C., Apr. 14 - Iranians from across the United States gathered in the Constitution Hall here today to take part in what they called Iranian-American National Convention for Democratic Change in Iran. Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA), joint-chair of the Iran Human Rights and Democracy Caucus of the U.S. House of Representative; Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Congress and Co-chair of the Caucus; Congressman Dennis Moore (D-KS); and Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) were among the speakers who offered their support...

TEHRAN, IRAN – Clutching flowers, chewing fingernails, and nervously holding their faces in their hands, 31 Iranian families awaited a reunion they thought would never come. They were reuniting with sons who had joined anti-Iran militants, officially tagged "terrorists" by both the US and Iran. The journey of one of those sons, Hamid Khalkali, is typical: He went to Turkey five years ago for work, but ended up at a military training camp in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. He was recruited by the Mujahideen-e Khalq, the "People's Holy Warriors," or MKO, Iran's largest opposition group, which aims to overthrow the government....