People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran
The Mujahideen al-Khalq is also known as the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), the Mujahideen al-Khalq Organization (MKO), or the The People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI). Its armed wing is called the National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA). The organization, which started in the 1960s, is today a violent guerilla group that opposes the Islamic Iranian government. The MKO has been officially designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation by the United States and is proscribed in the European Union.
The MKO began life as one of the most radical factions opposed to the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and during the 1970s carried out violent attacks against that regime. Some also blame the group for attacks on American interests and murder of Americans in that time.
While initially in a key role in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, able to mobilise hundreds of thousands workers, students and pupils, but also many younger army officers, it lost out in the subsequent power struggle and was prohibited from taking part in the post-revolutionary government because of its leftist leanings. Its initial mass protests and demonstrations were clamped down upon by the government and many (some say thousands) supporters and members were arrested and killed. Eventually MKO was driven from Iran and has had to operate from abroad since the early eighties.
Following the initial clamp down on its mass protests, the movement changed tactics and employed targeted assassinations and bomb attacks against representatives and officials of the Islamic Republic. It is difficult to estimate the exact extent of this campaign which still continues, as both MKO and the Iranian government have been accused of exaggerating their claims. The MKO's motive is supposed to be to further fund raising, while the Iranian government has been accused of trying to shift blame for events unrelated (see Haik Hovsepian). The movement has been accused of being responsible for a large number of assassinations and bomb attacks, including the killing of Mohammad Beheshti and Mohammad Javad Bahonar. The movement also launched several full scale military campaigns during the eighties and nineties, the largest of which was an attempt in 1988 to capture Kermanshah using largely weaponry supplied by Iraq. The invasion force was nearly annihilated by Iranian military.
Initially together with some other Iranian exile politicians (like Abolhassan Banisadr) the MKO formed the National Council of Resistance (NCR). Nowadays the MKO is the only significant member organisation of the NCR and the NCR is essentially a front organisation of the MKO.
Since the Iran-Iraq war until the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the MKO was supported by the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein, which offered military equipment, funding and bases to the organisation. After having initially the centre of the organisation in Paris, France, this was moved after a few years to be in Iraq, too. Apart from the military action against Iran described above, Saddam Hussein used it also from time to time to quell internal uprisings, particularly among the Kurds in 1991.
After the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 the MKO's weaponry was seized and the personell initially placed under armed guard in a camp outside Baghdad. In August 2004, despite its own labeling of the MKO as a terrorist group, the United States granted the personell in Iraq Geneva Convention protection, making a deportation to Iran illegal. Earlier in 2004 there had been persistent rumours that Iran and the United States were negotiating exchange of MKO leaders for al-Qaida operatives held by Iran. This chaneg in policy has led to increased speculation that the MKO may be used by the United States in operation against Iran.
Ideologically, the MKO is difficult to describe. While being initially based on an attempt to amalgamate socialist and Islamic thoughts, similar to the teachings of Ali Shariati the MKO was submit to a number of rapid ideological shifts (each allegedly accompanied by severe internal purges) and has developed a strong veneration of its leader couple Ali Rajavi and Maryam Rajavi, which some call personality cult. There have been allegation that the MKO were running prison camps within Iraq and were committing severe human rights breaches. To the Western world, the MKO tries to present itself as a pro-democratic and moderate political movement.
In recognition for its work against the Iranian Islamic revolutionary government, the movement has enjoyed long periods of large freedom and not uncommonly public support within the Western world. The world wide centre was for many years in Paris, France and even after move of the same to Iraq during the early 1980's the base in Paris remained large and active. Similarly its operatives were - legally or at least well tolerated - active in Germany, Denmark and many other countries of the European Union. The NCR maintained an Information Office in Washington DC, USA, until its designation as a terrorist group. This designation has never been accepted unanimously. Only in 2003, a hundred members of the United States Congress signed a letter calling for the lifting of this designation. Similarly the activities in France were allowed to continue long after the official proscription in the EU. Only In June 2003, the group had some of its French properties raided, after suspicions that it was trying to shift its base of operations there. [1].