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Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization
http://www.ict.org.il/inter_ter/orgdet.cfm?orgid=24

a.k.a: The National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA, the militant wing of the MEK, The People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), National Council of Resistance (NCR), Muslim Iranian Student’s Society (front organization used to garner financial support)
Originally formed in the 1960's as an armed Islamic opposition movement against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the MKO fought in the guerrilla operations that forced his overthrow. However due to its radical socialist ideology the organization was cut out of the power structure built by the ayatollahs in the wake of the revolution.

The group turned against the new government and continues to wage an armed struggle against the Iranian state from Iraq, which provides the group with financial and logistical support and military equipment. The MKO remains the most powerful opponent of the Islamic Republic, attacking targets in Iran and assassinating Iranian officials. It is generally believed to have 15 to 20 bases in Iraq.

Formed in the 1960s by the college-educated children of Iranian merchants, the MKO sought to counter what it perceived as excessive Western influence in the Shah's regime. The MKO's ideology mixes Marxism and Islam. It has developed into the largest and most active armed Iranian dissident group. Its history is studded with anti-Western activity, and, most recently, attacks on the interests of the clerical regime in Iran and abroad.
In the 1980s the MKO's leaders were forced by Iranian security forces to flee to France. Most resettled in Iraq by 1987. In the mid-1980s their terrorist operations inside Iran were carried on at a lower level than in the 1970s. However, in recent years the organization has claimed credit for a number of operations in Iran.

The organization now has several thousand members based in Iraq with an extensive overseas support structure. Beyond support from Iraq, the MKO uses front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities. Most of the fighters are organized in the MKO's National Liberation Army (NLA).

The MKO's worldwide campaign against the Iranian Government stresses propaganda and occasionally uses terrorist violence. During the 1970s the organization staged terrorist attacks inside Iran and killed several US military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran. The MKO supported the takeover in 1979 of the US Embassy in Tehran. In April 1992 they conducted attacks on Iranian embassies in 13 different countries, demonstrating the group's ability to mount large-scale operations overseas. Recent attacks in Iran include three explosions in Tehran in June 1998 that killed three people and the assassination of Asadollah Lajevardi, the former director of the Evin Prison.

The MEK was founded in 1965 after a split in a Marxist-Leninist movement that had waged a guerrilla action in northern Iran. Its ideology emerged as a mix of Islam and Marx, with ingredients from the Iranian religious sociologist Ali Shariati, who advocated an "Islam without a clergy." The MEK, with KGB help, engaged in a campaign against the Shah, and sent cadres to Cuba, East Germany, South Yemen and Palestinian camps in Lebanon to train as guerrillas.

Vladimir Kuzishkin, a former KGB head in Tehran, reveals in his memoirs that the MEK became a major source of information on Iran for Moscow. It also helped Moscow in its efforts to thwart U.S. influence in Iran. In 1970 and 1971 the MEK murdered five American military technicians working with the Iranian army. An MEK team tried to kidnap U.S. Ambassador Douglas MacArthur III in Tehran. The attempt failed and their leader, Rajavi, was handed a death sentence, later commuted thanks to a plea to the Shah from Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny.

http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/435