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
Thanks for the link.
Tuesday, July 27, 2004. 8:13pm (AEST)
US grants People's Mujahedeen members protection
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200407/s1163249.htm
The United States has granted protected status under the Geneva Convention to almost 4,000 members of the exiled Iranian armed opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen.
Iran says the decision destroys the United States' claims to be fighting terrorist groups.
American officials are trying to play down this move and deny that it is contradictory.
For years, the People's Mujahedeen, or Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, was the main Iranian opposition group.
It carried out cross-border raids from Iraq.
Some 3,800 members have been disarmed by the US military after it invaded Iraq.
They are being held at a camp north-east of Baghdad.
Now the United States says that they have been granted protected status under the fourth Geneva Convention.
But this, it argues, simply reflects the fact that they were not direct belligerents in the conflict in Iraq.
What will ultimately happen to these people is not clear.
The US says it is working with the Iraqi Government and international organisations on this.
Previously, the Iraq authorities have said they want them expelled.
-- BBC