[JohnGalt]

Terrorists plan D.C. fundraiser

House Administration Chairman Robert Ney (R-Ohio) will ask Attorney General John Ashcroft today to investigate a charity event for ties to an Iranian terrorist group backed by Saddam Hussein.

The event, to be held Saturday at the Washington Convention Center, is billed as a “night of solidarity with Iran.” The organizers, led by the Iranian-American Society of Northern Virginia, hope to raise $140,000 to help survivors of the earthquake in Bam on Dec. 26, which killed 30,000 people.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Of the 23 organizations listed as sponsors for the event, 17 are known MEK front groups or linked to prominent MEK members and activists. None appears to be registered with the Internal Revenue Service or state agencies as legitimate businesses or charities.

The MEK has often created fictional philanthropic and social organizations to convey legitimacy. In a 1994 dossier on the group, the State Department noted that “many of these member groups are actually shell organizations, established by the [MEK] in order to make [it] appear representative and … popular.