[Marxism] The role of the Mujahedin Khalq in Iran

[Eli Stephens <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From PressTV: 
 http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=98647&sectionid=351020101

The terrorist Mujahedin Khalq
Organization (MKO) has reportedly played a major role in intensifying
the recent wave of street violence in Iran.



Iranian security officials reported Saturday that they have
identified and arrested a large number of MKO members who were involved
in recent riots in Iran's capital.



According to the security officials, the arrested members had
confessed that they were extensively trained in Iraq's camp Ashraf to
create post-election mayhem in the country.



They had also revealed that they have been given directions by the MKO command 
post in Britain. 



Street protests broke out after defeated presidential candidate
Mir-Hossein Mousavi rejected President Ahmadinejad's decisive win in
the June 12 election. His supporters have staged a series of illegal
rallies ever since.



Iran's deputy police commander, on Saturday, warned against the
mass gatherings, asserting that those who engage in any such actions
would be severely reprimanded.



Earlier on Saturday, MKO leader Maryam Rajavi had supported the
recent wave of street violence in Iran during a Saturday address to
supporters in Paris. 


Rajavi had reportedly described the MKO terrorists as the real winners of the 
Iranian election.



The Mujahedin Khalq Organization is a Marxist guerilla group, which
was founded in the 1960s.In the past two decades, MKO leaders have been
resettled in the northern outskirts of Paris.

 

The terrorists are especially notorious for taking sides with
former dictator Saddam Hussein during the war Iraq imposed on Iran
(1980-1988).



The group masterminded a slew of terrorist operations in Iran and
Iraq -- one of which was the 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic
Republic Party, in which more than 72 Iranian officials were killed.



A 2007 German intelligence report from the Federal Office for the
Protection of the Constitution has identified the MKO as a "repressive,
sect-like and Stalinist authoritarian organization which centers around
the personality cult of [MKO leaders] Maryam and Masoud Rajavi".



Anne Singleton, an expert on the MKO and author of 'Saddam's
Private Army' explains that the West aims to keep the group afloat in
order to use it in efforts to stage a regime change in Iran.



"With a new Administration in the White House a pre-emptive strike
on Iran looks unlikely. Instead the MKO's backers have put together a
coalition of small irritant groups, the known minority and separatist
groups, along with the MKO. These groups will be garrisoned around the
border with Iran and their task is to launch terrorist attacks into
Iran over the next few years to keep the fire hot," she explains.



"The role of the MKO is to train and manage these groups using the
expertise they acquired from Saddam's Republican Guard," Singleton
added.



A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report also condemns the MKO for
running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.
According to report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture
and jail terms.




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