Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) Resource Page
aka People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran
aka National Council of Resistance
Including rare and never-seen documents
The MEK and its
apologists (the Iran
Policy Committee, the Organization
of Iranian-American Communities, and
others) today claim that a "Marxist splinter group" killed four
U.S. officers and three civilian contractors working for Rockwell
International in the 1970s, and that the MEK never committed
terrorist acts against Americans.
• In the June 4, 1980 edition of
"Mojahid," the group reveal that it assassinated the deputy
chief of the U.S. military mission in Iran, Col. Lewis Hawkins, on
June 5, 1973, calling him "one of the criminal agents of U.S.
Imperialism in Iran."
• In the May 31, 1980 edition of
"Mojahid," the group commemorated the 8th anniversary
of the assassination of USAF Gen. Harold Price, chief of the Air
Force section of the U.S. Military Advisory Group in Iran, killed
by an MEK car bomb on May 31, 1972. " Because of this explosion,
[President] Nixon's visit was delayed for 45 minutes and the visit
took place in a fearful atmosphere," they write.
FDI president and
CEO Kenneth Timmerman debated the pro-MEK Iran Policy Committee in
Newsmax.com here
The
MEK and its apologists claim the group is pro-American,
and supports free-market policies. But the MEK welcomed the
decision by Khomeini to sever diplomatic ties with the United
States in April 1980, calling for the creation of "another
Vietnam."
• April 9, 1980 edition of "Mojahid"
The MEK and its apologists claim the group is pro- Israel. But Rajavi welcomed Arafat when he came to Tehran after the Islamic revolution in 1979, and presented a machine-gun to Arafat "as a pledge of support from the MKO of Iran." The citation contineus: "In the hope of meeting in a free Quds [Jerusalem], a meeting in which none of the region's reactionaries are present."
• Feb. 8, 1980 edition of Mojahid
More documents:
1993: International Iran
Times claims
MEK has won support of new Clinton-Gore administration.
1994 State Department
report on the MEK. In response to requests from Congress,
the State Department produced a damning report in October 1994 on
the MEK that laid out the evidence for the U.S. government's
determination that the MEK was a terrorist organization. The
report names the americans killed by the MEK in the 1970s,
describes its support for the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran
in Nov. 1979, its ongoing support for the Khomeini regime until
the split in 1981; its alliance with Saddam Hussein, and more.
This is the report the MEK can't get beyond.
• Read the full report
on-line here
MEK effots to buy influence in Congress. The Iran Brief, run by FDI President Kenneth Timmerman in the 1990s, was the first to expose the MEK's efforts to buy members of the U.S. Congress through campaign donations in 1997.
• Mujahedin Campaign Contributions (The Iran Brief)
•
Members of Congress who took MEK campaign cash
"Torricelli's
Terrorist
List Friends" - 1998 story from the American Spectator that
took the Iran Brief revelations of MEK campaign donations to a
wider public. When Torricelli was running for re-election to the
U.S. Senate, he dropped his support
for the group as soon as he was challenged to defend them by his
Republican opponent.
Operation
Suture: FBI penetration of MEK Camp Ashraf in the mid-1980s
found that the group continued to celebrate its May 31, 1972
murder of U.S. Air Force Brigadir General Harold Price and other
U.S. officers assassinated by the group with commemorative songs
and festivities.
The Bob Ney about-face
One of the delicious sidebars of the MEK story is the 180 degree pivot of Rep. Bob Ney, who had taken $4,000 from MEK members in 1995 before their lobbying campaign was exposed by FDI. In April 2003, Ney wrote a scathing letter to The Hill newspaper denouncing the "outright lies, exaggerations and deceptions" used by the group. Ney blasted the MEK for using "dozens of pseudonyms, such as the National Council of Resistance and the People's Movement of Iran, to hide contributions and spread its propaganda" and its close ties to Saddam Hussein. Ney also blasted the group for faking its support in Congress, and said that the reason the group steadfastly refuses to publish the names of Members of Congress who signed a letter of support last November is because the list "does not exist." He went on: "At one point, it may have; in fact, when MEK representatives first visited my office several years ago, preaching democracy for Iran, I was glad to join them in what appeared to be their effort. However, I quickly discovered that the MEK are not the proponents of democracy they claim to be but are in fact documented terrorists with a history of killing American citizens and supporting Saddam Hussein."
Just one month later, we discovered that Bob Ney had joined up with Trita Parsi and his newly-formed National Iranian-American Council. Here's how we announced the new marriage at the time:
May 22, 2003: Exiles call for protest
of pro-Tehran meetings in California next week. A new
pro-Tehran lobbying group, the "National Iranian American
Council," an apparent successor to Housang Amirahmadi's American
Iranian Council, plans to hold two meetings in California on May
30 and May 31, which have angered Iranian-Americans seeking to
promote democracy in Iran. Among the announced speakers are U.S.
Representatives Bob Ney
(R, Ohio) and Mike Honda (D, CA). The opposition groups have
called on supporters to protest the pro-Tehran meetings at the
following times and locations...
2005
Human Rights Watch report on abuses by the MEK of its own
members. Most of the information in this report comes from former
MEK members, some of whom acknowledge they have gone back to Iran.
2006 MEK Chronology (compiled by former MEK members possibly associated with the Iranian regime)
Earlier FDI reports:
MEK leadership moves to Iraq in 1986.March 1, 2001: Mujahedin fund-raising ring leaders arrested: The FBI arrested 7 members of the People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) at Los Angeles International airport on Feb. 28, on charges of illegal fund-raising for a terrorist organization. The PMOI, also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), was using a fake human rights organization as a front for funding military activities in Iraq. According to FBI witnesses inside the fund-raising network, all the money raised for unsuspecting travelers and from Iranian-Americans was shipped to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to buy military equipment for the group's National Liberal Army, based in Iraq.
August 9, 1999: Fom the July issue of The Iran Brief. We carried an exclusive investigation exposing Mujahedin fund-raising in Holland, and recent MEK campaign to buy influence in the U.S. Congress.
April 5, 1999: Mujahedin visa fraud ring. Exclusive: court documents filed in Los Angeles expose a massive alien smuggling ring and a document forgery shop apparently run by the opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq. Computer records seized at the MEK's document shop showed they had brought in 22,000 Iranians since 1983.
July 23, 1997: FDI Warns Congressmen about Iranian Mujahidin, a statement about the latest Congressional letter in support of the MEK. See also the full text of FDI's letter to Congressional signatories.
In Oct. 1986, the MEK publishes its own
photo of the June 15, 1986 Rajavi meeting Saddam
Here is the front
and the back
page of the MEK-published booklet that contained that photo.
In January 1988, the MEK published this
new photo of Rajavi meeting with Saddam:
Massoud Rajavi seemed to love Saddam Hussein as much as he earlier loved ayatollah Khomeini.
Links to the Department of State's
Annual reports on terrorism, which have listed the MEK as an
international terrorist group since 1995.
1996
report
1997
report
1998
report
1999
report
2000 report
2001 report
2002 report
2003 report
2004 report
2005 report
2006 report