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Formerly Listed Iranian Terrorist Group Finds Allies Inside White House

By RFE/RL July 30, 2019

An exiled Iranian dissident group that the United States once deemed a terrorist group is gaining favor with some hawks in the White House.

Based mostly in Albania, the Mujahedin Khalq enjoys support from national-security adviser John Bolton and Trump's personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, both of whom desire regime change in Tehran.

Giuliani and Bolton have received tens of thousands of dollars from the group to speak and appear in rallies and conferences, dpa news agency reported.

Earlier this month, for example, Guiliani gave a speech at a Mujahedin Khalq conference in Albania where he denounced the Islamic republic and likened the Mujahedin Khalq to a "government in exile."

Bolton two years ago said that U.S. policy should be "the overthrow of the mullahs' regime in Tehran" at a Mujahedin Khalq conference in Paris.

Yet in 1997-2012, the U.S. State Department listed the group as a terrorist organization partially for launching deadly attacks on American diplomats and businessmen in Iran during the 1970s.

The group was established in the early 1960s by husband-and-wife Massoud and Maryam Rajavi with leftist students in Iran who opposed the shah of Iran, who was then backed by the United States, and other Western countries.

Mujahedin Khalq was militant in nature and conducted a series of terrorist attacks against Iran. U.S. military personnel and civilians also were killed in the attacks.

The group says it stands for a free and democratic Iran. Its detractors say Mujahedin Khalq is a cult that doesn't have much popular support.

A 1994 U.S. State Department report said the group wasn't "a viable alternative to the current government of Iran."

It helped Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers oust the shah from power during the 1979 revolution, but some 2,000 members fled to Iraq in the 1980s when the Shiite Muslim cleric began to view the group as an adversary. From there, the group continued to oppose the Islamic republic by organizing attacks inside the country and on its embassies

Mujahedin Khalq remained in Iraq for two decades but the situation changed after a U.S.-led force invaded the country in 2003.

The new Iraqi government wanted the group to leave so the United States found Mujahedin Khalq a home in Albania while removing it from its list of terrorist groups during the Barack Obama administration.

Under President Donald Trump, Iran's Revolutionary Guard has been labeled a terrorist group and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was sanctioned, measures for which the Mujahedin Khalq have advocated.

However, Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo don't appear to have an association with the group and have kept their distance from it.

And Brian Hook, the U.S. special envoy to Iran, has maintained that the Iranian people should determine the country's future, not the United States.

With reporting by dpa

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/formerly-listed- iranian-terrorist-group-finds-allies- inside-white-house/30082570.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.