The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) — which John Kiriakou also renders as “Mujahedin al-Haq” — is an Iranian opposition group he characterizes as “a quasi-communist cult” and a former U.S.-designated terrorist organization. He raises it primarily to discredit the intelligence the U.S. relied on in deciding to attack Iran: “When the only analysis you’re getting or paying attention to is from either the Israelis or the MEK, which is really no more than a quasi-communist cult, then you can’t rely on the information.”[1][2]
Origins and anti-American attacks
Per Kiriakou, the MEK was founded by a husband-and-wife team in the 1960s and based in northeastern Iraq, from which it launched cross-border terrorist attacks deep into Iran, including in Tehran. It attempted to murder the American ambassador and a three-star general who was the senior-most U.S. military official in Iran, and carried out anti-American terrorist attacks over the course of decades.[2][3] In a separate telling, Kiriakou describes the group — originally communist opposition during the Shah’s era — as having actually assassinated an American ambassador and kidnapped a US four-star general.[4] In a third account, Kiriakou says the MEK — an Iran-based cult originally founded as a communist organization in northern Iraq — tried to kill the American ambassador and the senior-most American general in Iran during the 1970s and would kidnap and execute Iranian government officials.[5]
Relocation to Paris; the Rajavi takeover
When Saddam Hussein later pushed the MEK out of Iraq, it relocated mostly to Paris. Kiriakou notes the recurring pattern — Paris was also where Ayatollah Khomeini lived until 1979 and where the Greek groups 17 November and Popular Revolutionary Struggle began. The husband of current leader Maryam Rajavi “vanished never to be seen again,” and the conventional wisdom, per Kiriakou, is that “she killed him or had him killed and she took over the MEK.”[6][7] He gives the same account elsewhere: Rajavi’s husband, the group’s founder, simply disappeared one day, and it is rumored she killed him and buried him in the rock; she has since led the group from bases in Washington and Paris.[8] In a third telling, Kiriakou again says the founder-husband “just vanished one day. Just disappeared,” and that “the consensus is that she murdered him and disposed of his body so that she could take over the organization, which she has.”[9]
Delisting and the lobbying campaign
After Barack Obama’s 2009 election, the MEK hired some of the most high-powered lobbyists in Washington — engaging both parties, “everybody from Howard Dean to Rudy Giuliani” — to get itself removed from the terrorism list, appearing together at large fundraising banquets. Kiriakou’s incredulity: “These are the people who tried to kill the US ambassador. But they’re the good guys now.”[7][10][11] In a separate account, Kiriakou places the same rehabilitation earlier, saying the MEK hired Rudy Giuliani to represent it in Washington and was “feted” by the Clinton administration.[4] Kiriakou also credits Hillary Clinton specifically with taking the MEK off the State Department’s terrorism list, after which prominent Democrats and Republicans alike began taking MEK money to lobby on its behalf — with Clinton and Giuliani both later showing up at MEK fundraising dinners in Washington and New York to praise Rajavi as a great leader.[12]
Israeli funding and assassinations
Per Kiriakou, the MEK is ardently communist, lacks the wherewithal to actually fight the Iranian government, and exists largely to arm itself with the American weapons its delisting now permits. He says the conventional wisdom is that “the Israelis use the MEK regularly to carry out these assassinations we’ve seen over the years in Tehran,” and that the MEK takes “lots of money” from Israel.[11][13][14][15] Elsewhere Kiriakou says he is “100% certain” the MEK, funded with Israeli money, is behind the protests and unrest inside Iran, which by his count had caused at least 15 deaths as of that telling.[16]