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Ney says Fox News using Middle East consultant with Iranian terrorism link

By GREG WRIGHT
Gazette Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Ohio Rep. Bob Ney says an expert on the Middle East who appears regularly on the Fox News Channel has ties to an Iranian terrorist organization.

Alireza Jafarzadeh said Friday his group's opposition to Iran's fundamentalist Muslim government doesn't make it a terrorist group.

The State Department added the National Council of Resistance of Iran to its terrorist list in 2002 because it had ties to Mujahedin-e Khalq, a terrorist organization that seeks to overthrow Iran's government.

Jafarzadeh was the Washington-based council's congressional representative until the State Department closed its offices in August 2002.

"Absolutely not -- that is ridiculous," Jafarzadeh said when asked if his organization was a terrorist group.

Jafarzadeh, who runs his own consulting firm, claims the Bush administration put his group on the terrorist list because the White House wants to improve ties with Iran.

"Now he's simply not telling the truth," Ney, R-St. Clairsville, said in a telephone interview late Thursday.

Fox News officials refused to comment. Jafarzadeh said he would continue to appear on the 24-hour cable news network.

Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is a Marxist-Islamic organization created by children of college-educated Iranian merchants in the 1960s, the State Department said. The group resented the infiltration of Western culture during Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi's reign.

MEK supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and fundamentalist revolution that overthrew the shah. But MEK turned against the regime in the 1980s and is now the largest Iranian dissident group.

American relations are slowly warming with Iran's fundamentalist government. Iran is considering allowing a delegation of American lawmakers to visit for the first time since the 1979 revolution.

On Wednesday, Ney was in a group of lawmakers who met with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations.

Jafarzadeh, who attended college at Ohio University in Athens, accused Ney of switching sides by cozying up to an Iranian regime he used to criticize. Ney taught English in Iran before the revolution and is fluent in Farsi.

"We were good friends until he switched sides and he began defending the Iranian regime," Jafarzadeh said of Ney. "I have nothing personal against him. I still respect him."

Ney is also asking the Justice Department to investigate the Iranian-American Society of Northern Virginia, which planned a January benefit for victims of last month's Iranian earthquake. Ney said that group is also linked to MEK and Jafarzadeh and should not be allowed to raise money in the United States.

The Justice Department will review Ney's request, spokesman John Nowacki said.

http://www.chillicothegazette.com/news/stories/20040131/localnews/327329.html

Note: Although the MKO is a terrorist group and should be treated as such, Bob Ney has gone on an aggressive campaign of trying to undermine opposition groups to the Islamic Republic while at the same time meeting members of the Islamic regime.

Important to note that Ney had Trita Parisa working for him for a while. Mr. Parisa is a ranking member of the NIAC (a group large segments of Iranian-Americans believe is affiliated underhandedly with the Islamic Republic).

Mr. Ney may have been brainwashed by Mr. Parisas propaganda.