Mujahideen-e-Khalq

MeK

12/12/2006

The Mujahideen-e-Khalq was previously known as the People's Mujahideen of Iran. They operate out of Iraq and France. They oppose the Shi'ite Iranian government, and they serve as the militant arm of the National Council of Resistance to Iran, a coalition of opposition groups which claims to be the transitional parliament-in-exile.

Prior to American's Iraqi invasion, the NCRI was headquartered in Iraq, with representative offices in other countries including a presence in Washington, D.C. Over they years the NCRI received support from the U.S. Congress. But ignorant and immoral as usual, after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government actively courted cooperation from the Shi'ite government of Iran and canceled its unofficial support for the Mujahideen-e-Khalq and NCRI. It was like soliciting Satan's help against the Devil and in the process snubbing one's nose at a demon.

The reason the NCRI and its Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) were based in Iraq was that prior to the American invasion, Iraq and Iran were enemies. Further, the Iraqi government was secular - the very thing the NCRI desired for Iran. Now all of that has changed. Iran controls Iraq via the Iranian Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, and Iraq's government is now Islamic and fundamentalist.

In George Bush's crusade to justify his intended invasion of Iraq, vague intelligence reports were leaked which were construed to suggest that Mujahideen-e-Khalq militia camps in Iraq might be hiding some of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. But that was absurd. Even though the NCRI was secular, they were Iranian, and thus the last people a paranoid dictator would trust with his imaginary weapons.

Knowing in advance what was going to happen in Iraq, and that they would soon be secular outcasts in a sectarian culture, the NCRI and MEK immediately enveloped themselves in the protection of U.S. forces following the invasion of Iraq. In May 2003, U.S. Central Command stated that the group was "complying fully with Coalition instructions and directives." Mind you, the MEK hated America almost as much as it despised the Iranian regime.

Since the American government has never understood Islam, nor the strife that exists in its realm between the secular and sectarian, a quick review of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq is in order. They began as a liberal, even socialistic, nationalistic party supporting former Prime Minister Mossaddeq against the Shah in 1963. Failing to achieve their goals through popular protests, in 1971 the MEG began its armed struggle against the Shah, whom it saw as a dictator and a puppet of the United States. The group conducted a number of attacks on U.S. military personnel and civilians in Iran in the 1970s.

Although the Mujahideen-e-Khalq initially supported the 1979 revolution and the overthrow of the Shah, the group's secular perspective led to an eventual crackdown by the Ayatollah Khomeini regime following the MEK's call for a mass demonstration after the 1981 impeachment of Abolhasan Bani-Sadr, the elected President and chairman of the Islamic Revolutionary Council. Thousands of MEK members were killed and imprisoned as a result of religious repression.

The MEK's leaders fled to Paris, where the Ayatollah Khomeini had hung out and their militant infrastructure moved to Iraq. In 1987 the Mujahideen-e-Khalq headquarters was also relocated to Iraq. United again, they began using Iraq as a base for cross-border raids into Iran.

In 1991, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq assisted Saddam Hussein in suppressing the Shia and Kurdish uprisings, and continued to perform internal security services for Iraq's secular government. In April 1992, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq conducted simultaneous attacks on Iranian Embassies and installations in thirteen countries. In April 1999, the MEK assassinated the deputy chief of the Armed Forces of Iran. In 2000 and 2001 they were involved in mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids on Iranian military and law-enforcement units and government buildings near the Iran-Iraq border.

The Mujahideen-e-Khalq still exists to overthrow the Iranian Shi'ite government and replace it with the NCRI. At a 1995 conference, the Marxist Muslim group outlined a plan. The key provision was: Guarantee freedom for political parties and forums except those loyal to either the Shah or Ayatollah Khomeini. Under such a system, the only candidates would be those approved by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq.

The Mujahedin-e-Khalq have periodically released information on Iran's developing nuclear weapons ambitions, including a crucial 2002 revelation regarding Iran's uranium enrichment program. Its latest release came in February 2005, when the group passed on information to the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) that Iran now possesses sources for polonium-210 and beryllium, crucial components in building a nuclear initiator. The group claims that this is the last objective that Iran needed to fulfill, and that they plan to have to a nuclear weapon by the end of 2006.