home > by publication type > backgrounder > Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) (aka People's Mujahedin of Iran or PMOI)
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| Author: | Holly Fletcher |
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Updated: April 18, 2008
The U.S. State Department lists the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq as a terrorist organization for its association with Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime until the dictator’s ouster by the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The MEK was blamed for Western targets in the 1970s and for supporting the 1979 American embassy takeover in Tehran. Over the last two decades, however, the group’s continued presence on the U.S. terrorist group list primarily involves its activities directed from Iraqi territory against Iran. After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the MEK was disarmed and confined by American forces to the grounds of a former Iraqi military base. Still, the 2007 State Department report says that MEK maintains “the capacity and will” to attack “Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, and beyond.”
Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) is the largest and most militant group opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Also known as the People’s Mujahadeen Organization of Iran, MEK is led by husband and wife Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. MEK was added to the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist groups in 1997 and to the European Union’s terrorist list in 2002 because its attacks have often killed civilians.
MEK was founded in 1963 by a group of college-educated Iranian leftists—supporters of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq—opposed to the country’s pro-Western ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The group participated in the 1979 Islamic revolution that replaced the shah with a Shiite Islamist regime led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. But MEK’s ideology, a blend of Marxism, feminism, and Islamism, put it at odds with the post-revolutionary government, and its original leadership was soon executed by the Khomeini regime. In 1981, the group was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Iraq in its eight-year war against Khomeini’s Iran. In 1986, after France recognized the Iranian regime, MEK moved its headquarters to Iraq, which used MEK to harass neighboring Iran. MEK maintained its headquarters in Iraq until the American invasion in 2003 when many members surrendered their weapons.
Maryam Rajavi, who hopes to become president of Iran, is MEK’s principal leader. Her husband, Massoud Rajavi, heads up the group’s military forces. Maryam Rajavi was born in 1953 to an upper-middle class Iranian family, and she joined MEK as a student in Tehran in the early 1970s. After relocating with the group to Paris in 1981, she was elected its joint leader and later became deputy commander-in-chief of its armed wing. Experts say that MEK has increasingly come to resemble a cult that is devoted to Massoud Rajavi’s secular interpretation of the Koran and is prone to sudden, dramatic ideological shifts. In June 2003, French authorities raided a MEK compound outside Paris and arrested 160 people, including Maryam Rajavi. She was released in 2006 but resides in Paris where she bases her campaign to remove the Iranian theocracy. Massoud Rajavi was last known to be living in Iraq, but authorities aren’t certain of his whereabouts or whether he is alive.
Despite MEK’s violent tactics, the group’s strong stance against Iran—part of President Bush’s “axis of evil”—and pro-democratic image have won it support among some U.S. and European lawmakers, according to a 2005 Center for Policing Terrorism report, and there has been an ongoing, vigorous campaign by its supporters in the U.S. Congress to have it removed from the terrorist list.
The group’s armed unit operated from camps in Iraq near the Iran border since 1986. During the Iraq war, U.S. troops disarmed MEK and posted guards at its bases. In addition to its Paris-based members, MEK has a network of sympathizers in Europe, the United States, and Canada. The group’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, maintains offices in several capitals, and used to have a branch in Washington, DC before U.S. officials closed it down in August 2003.
Until 2003 the MEK received funds, arms, and state sponsorship from Saddam Hussein. Following Operation Iraqi Freedom, the MEK relies on donations from Iranian expatriates and front organizations that often campaign for greater human rights in Iran, according to the State Department.
During the Iraq war, U.S. forces cracked down on the MEK. About 3,400 people were disarmed at Camp Ashraf, surrendering two thousand tanks, armored personnel carriers, and heavy artillery pieces, according to the 2006 report. Those living at Camp Ashraf are designated as “protected persons” under Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prevents extradition or forced repatriation to Iran as long as the United States maintains a presence in Iraq. The Unites States has no plans to charge and prosecute people living in this camp. The “protected persons” designation applies solely to those living at Camp Ashraf, not other members of the group, nor does it affect the MEK’s listing on the State Department terrorist list.
The MEK currently seeks to overthrow the Iranian theocracy and install a democratic government that is headed, at least initially, by MEK leader Maryam Rajavi. The MEK opposes the Iranian regime that governs under Islamic code. Instead, the MEK wants to establish a government to follow a sixteen-point plan that stemmed from a 1995 conference, which ensures rights like the freedoms of speech and religion, adheres to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and improves ties with foreign governments, according to the Center for Policing Terrorism.
MEK is believed to have several thousand members, with communities in Paris as well as other large European capitals, according to the State Department. Experts say its activities have dropped off in recent years as its membership has dwindled but, according to Rajavi, the group is still strong and active. MEK has had little success luring new recruits and is composed mostly of its founding members.
The group has targeted Iranian government officials and government facilities in Iran and abroad, and during the 1970s, it attacked Americans in Iran. While the group says it does not intentionally target civilians, it has often risked civilian casualties. It routinely aims its attacks at government buildings in crowded cities. MEK terrorism has declined since late 2001. Incidents linked to the group include:
It’s unclear how many attacks MEK has carried out; according to experts, the group’s claims of responsibility for attacks in Iran are often exaggerated, and sometimes MEK is blamed by the Iranian government for attacks it didn’t stage.
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