SECRET OPS IN IRAN
There is a secret force operating in Iran with a very interesting history.
USA has used them as a carrot and a stick, labeled them terrorists and hired them for clandestine ops.
The People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI, also MEK, MKO) (Persian: سازمان مجاهدين خلق ايران sazmaan-e mujahedin-e khalq-e Iran) is a militant political party that advocates overthrowing the government in the Islamic Republic of Iran and replacing it with its own leadership.
PMOI is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, European Union, and Iran.[1][2] Although the European Court of Justice has overturned this designation in December 2006,[3] the Council of the EU declared on 30 January 2007 that it would maintain the organization on the blacklist.[4][5] (See: #Designation as a terrorist organization)
PMOI claims that it is the main organization in the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an "umbrella coalition". However this claim has been criticised by the FBI,[6] and individuals including Michael Axworthy, a senior public servant in the United Kingdom[7] that believe NCRI is merely a front group for the PMOI. The PMOI's armed wing is called the National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA). The Iranian government officially refers to the organization as the Monafeqin (i.e., "Hypocrites").[8]
Relations with France in the mid-1980s
In 1986, after then French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac struck a deal with Tehran for the release of French hostages held prisoners by the Hezbollah in Lebanon, PMOI was forced to leave France and relocated in Iraq. Investigative journalist Dominique Lorentz has related the 1986 capture of French hostages to an alleged blackmail of France by Tehran concerning the nuclear program[23]
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, MEK camps were bombed by coalition forces ( MEK notified USA forces where they were, they disarmed voluntary and said they would not oppose USA forces, they were bombed anyway 13 killed. ) MEKbecause of its alliance with Saddam Hussein. On April 15th, the leaders of the entered into a ceasefire agreement with the coalition after the attack. On May 11th, 2003 the US launched simultaneous surprise attacks on MEK compounds across Iraq.[27][28][29] Each compound surrendered without hostilities. In the operation, the US reportedly captured 6,000 MEK fighters and over 2,000 pieces of military equipment.[30][31]
After a four-month investigation by several US agencies, including the State Department, only a handful of charges under U.S. criminal law were brought against MEK members, all American citizens. The MEK aka PMOI remains listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the Department of State. [5] Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared MEK personnel in Ashraf protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention. They are currently under the guard of US Military. Defectors from this group are housed separately in a refugee camp within Camp Ashraf, and protected by the Bulgarian Army. [6] [7]
External Aid
When Saddam Hussein was in power, MEK received the majority of its financial support from the Iraqi regime. It also used front organizations, such as the Muslim Iranian Student’s Society, to collect money from expatriate Iranians and others, according to the State Department’s counterterrorism office. Iraq was MEK’s primary benefactor. Iraq provided MEK with bases, weapons, and protection, and MEK harassed Saddam’s Iranian foes. MEK’s attacks on Iran traditionally intensified when relations between Iran and Iraq grew strained. Iraq encouraged or restrained MEK, depending on Baghdad’s interests.
2003 French raid
- Further information: Irano-French relations
In June 2003 French police raided the Mujahedin's properties, including its base in Auvers-sur-Oise, under the orders of anti-terrorist magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière, after suspicions that it was trying to shift its base of operations there. 160 suspected MKO members were then arrested, 40 went into a hunger strike to protest against the repression, and ten immolated themselves in various European capitals in protestation against the raids. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) declared that the MKO "recently wanted to make France its support base, notably after the intervention in Iraq," while Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, head of France's domestic intelligence service, claimed that the group was "transforming its Val d'Oise centre [near Paris] ... into an international terrorist base".[32]
US Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas and chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on South Asia, then accused the French of doing "the Iranian government's dirty work". Along with other MPs, he wrote a letter of protest to President Jacques Chirac, while longtime PMOI supporters such as Sheila Jackson-Lee, Democrat of Texas, criticized Maryam Radjavi's arrest.[11]
However, the MKO members were quickly released. The French action against the NCRI have been accused of being parts of negotiation between Paris and Tehran, concerning the nuclear program and maybe also some business deals. The MKO claims that after three years, there is nothing in the files that would implicate the NCRI and Mrs. Rajavi in any wrong doing and the case has essentially died. ( France still holds passports and computers of the group. )
Alleged MKO activity in Iran
In 2006 news reports linked the PMOI with US threats to attack Iran, specifically use of the PMOI to "prepare the battlefield" for US military action against Iran.[36]
According to the news organisation Rawstory, an intelligence official said that following the invasion of Iraq, “We [the US] disarmed [the MKO] of major weapons, but not small arms. US Secretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld was pushing to use them as a military special ops team, but there was infighting between Rumsfeld's camp and then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, but she was able to fight them off for a while”.
According to another intelligence source, the policy infighting ended last year when Rumsfeld, under pressure from US Vice President Dick Cheney, came up with a plan to “convert” the MKO by having them simply quit their organization." “These guys are nuts,” the intelligence source said. "Stephen Cambone (Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence) and those guys made MKO members swear an oath to democracy and resign from the MKO and then our guys incorporated them into their unit and trained them [for action in Iran]”. A UN source close to the United Nations Security Council, again according to Rawstory, said in April 2006 that "the clandestine war had been going on for roughly a year".
According to a former Iranian ambassador and an intelligence correspondent of the UPI news agency, "The Iranian accusations are true, but it is being done on such a small scale - a series of pinpricks - it would seem to have no strategic value at all."
( They now infiltrate Irans infra structure providing reports on Iran's nuclear activity. The MEK has also been instrumental in exposing major nuclear sites of Iran as well as its clandestine terror network in Iraq. )
Designation as a terrorist organization
PMOI is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States since 1997, Canada, and Iran.[1][2] According to Wall Street Journal[38] "senior diplomats in the Clinton administration say the PMOI figured prominently as a bargaining chip in a bridge-building effort with Tehran." The PMOI is also on the European Union's blacklist of terrorist organizations, which lists 28 organizations, since 2002.[39] The enlistments included: Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States in 1997 under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and again in 2001 pursuant to section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224 on terrorist financing; as well as by the European Union (EU) in 2002.[40] Its bank accounts were frozen in 2002 after the September 11, 2001 attacks and a call by the EU to block terrorist organizations' funding. However, the European Court of Justice has overturned this in December 2006 and has criticized the lack of "transparency" with which the blacklist is composed.[41] However, the Council of the EU declared on 30 January 2007 that it would maintain the organization on the blacklist.[42][43]
EU-freezing of funds was lifted on December 12 2006 by the European Court of First Instance.[44] In 2003 the US State Department included the NCRI on the blacklist, under Executive Order 13224.[45]
According to a 2003 article by the New York Times, the US 1997 inscription of the group on the terrorist blacklist was done as "a goodwill gesture toward Iran's newly elected reform-minded president, Mohammad Khatami" (succeeded in 2005 by more conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad).[11] In 2002, 150 members of the United States Congress signed a letter calling for the lifting of this designation. The MEK have also tried to have the designation removed through several court cases in the U.S. The MEK has now lost three appeals (1999, 2001 and 2003) to the US government to be removed from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and its terrorist status was reaffirmed each time. The MEK has continued to protest worldwide against its listing, with the overt support of some US political figures.[12][46]
Another key source of support for the MKO has included members of the U.S. Congress, including Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL.), Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX),[47] and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, "who became involved with the MKO while a Republican senator from Missouri."[48] In 2000, 200 U.S. Congress members signed a statement endorsing the organization's cause.[49]
PMOI operatives were and are – legally or at least well tolerated – active in Germany, Denmark and many other countries of the European Union. The NCRI maintained an Information Office in Washington DC, USA until August 2002, when US Secretary of State Colin Powell issued an order to shut down the offices.[50]
In April 2007, CNN reported that the US military and the International Committee of the Red Cross was continuing to protect the group, with the US army regularly escorting MEK supply runs between Baghdad and its base, Camp Ashraf.[51]
Mujahedin-e-Khalq [MEK] facilities in Iraq included
- Camp Ashraf, the MEK military headquarters, is about 100 kilometers west of the Iranian border and 100 kilometers north of Baghdad near Khalis
- Camp Anzali near the town of Jalawla [Jalula] (120-130 km (70-80 miles) northeast of Baghdad and about 40-60 km (20-35 miles) from the border with Iran)
- Camp Faezeh in Kut
- Camp Habib in Basra
- Camp Homayoun in Al-Amarah
- Camp Bonyad Alavi near the city of Miqdadiyah in Mansourieh [about 65 miles northeast of Baghdad]
The Qods Force has allocated several bases in Tehran, Karaj, Qom, Isfahan, as well as the provinces of Kermanshah, Ilam, Kurdistan, and Khuzestan for the military training of Iraqi death squads and terrorist networks. These individuals travel to Iran in groups under various covers, using both legal and illegal borders.
Iraq will be secure and stable when Iran's influence is cut off, its agents arrested, militias disarmed and Tehran's proxies purged from the Iraqi government. At the same time, the coalition of secular and nationalist Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds should be empowered. To accomplish that, the Unites States should be ready to take drastic measures regarding Iran.
The U.S. can best exercise its leverage against Iran by removing the Iranian opposition, the MEK from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO). According to these members of congress, the U.S. State Department included the MEK on the FTO list a decade ago in an effort to placate the mullahs in Tehran. In addition to allowing the MEK to use its full resources to counter Tehran's agenda in Iraq, such a move would send to the Iranian regime the unmistakable signal that the U.S. is serious about halting Iran's terrorist influence in Iraq and the rest of the region.
COLLATED from various sources:
http://newsblaze.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Mujahedin_of_Iran
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/mek.htm
http://www.cfr.org/publication/9158/
And our source connected to the dissidents in Iran.
Gerald
posted by gerald at
6/01/2007 01:40:00 AM
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