People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran

Overview

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, also known as the PMOI or Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), is an Iranian opposition organization established in 1965. It first fought the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, then broke with the Islamic Republic after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Its members faced imprisonment, torture and execution under the new regime. From exile, the organization pursued armed operations and later an international political campaign to replace Iran’s ruling regime. Its history includes attacks on Americans, an alliance with Saddam Hussein during the Iran–Iraq War, disclosures about Iran’s nuclear program and former terrorist designations in the United States and Europe. ^{[1][3][4][10]}

The organization’s political arm is the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), whose core consists of the MEK. Maryam Rajavi has led the council’s public campaign for regime change while the organization’s members have lived outside Iran. Their long residence at Camp Ashraf in Iraq became a major question for coalition and Iraqi authorities after Saddam Hussein’s fall. The group’s later relocation did not erase the distinct phases of its history: underground opposition to the shah, conflict with Ruhollah Khomeini’s regime, armed activity from Iraq and political organizing in exile. ^{[4][6][7][12][15]}

Founding and ideology

College-educated Iranian leftists founded the organization in 1965 in opposition to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. During the 1960s and 1970s, it operated underground and treated the overthrow of the shah as a revolutionary objective. Its original ideology combined Islam and Marxism. It also drew on the Iranian religious sociologist Ali Shariati, whose call for an “Islam without a clergy” offered a way to frame political revolution outside clerical leadership. That founding mixture helps explain why the organization cannot be described solely by its later exile politics or its campaign against the Islamic Republic. ^[1][2][4]

The anti-Pahlavi campaign included preparations for guerrilla warfare. MEK cadres traveled to Cuba, East Germany, South Yemen and camps in Lebanon for training. Iranian opposition networks in Lebanon also included the Liberation Movement of Iran and followers of Ruhollah Khomeini. These groups opposed the same monarchy without sharing a single program for the government that would follow it. The MEK’s training and underground organization formed part of a wider revolutionary struggle that preceded the monarchy’s collapse in 1979. ^[1][3]

Violence formed part of the organization’s pre-revolutionary record. In 1970 and 1971, its members killed five American military technicians working with Iran’s army. An MEK team also attempted to kidnap U.S. Ambassador Douglas MacArthur III in Tehran. Massoud Rajavi received a death sentence after the failed attempt, which the shah later commuted. These acts became central to later arguments over the organization’s terrorist designation. They also distinguish its armed campaign from the broader coalition of people and movements that opposed Pahlavi. ^[3][10]

During the Cold War, the organization supplied Moscow with information about Iran, and its campaign against Pahlavi received KGB help. Those connections belonged to the anti-shah phase of a movement whose alliances changed sharply after the revolution. The organization’s original Islam-and-Marxism synthesis, guerrilla training and external contacts were components of its early strategy, before Massoud and Maryam Rajavi became its central leaders and before Iraq became the base for its armed force. ^[1][2]

History

The MEK participated in the struggle that culminated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution. It then broke with the regime built under Ruhollah Khomeini. Opposition to the shah had not resolved the question of who would govern Iran, and the new rulers moved against former revolutionary rivals. The Islamic Republic imprisoned, tortured and killed thousands of MEK members. Maryam Rajavi, who had joined the organization as a student in Tehran in the early 1970s, relocated with it to Paris in 1981. Her political work in exile developed as repression inside Iran intensified. ^{[1][2][15][18]}

Massoud Rajavi moved to Iraq and built the organization’s military faction there. During the Iran–Iraq War, the MEK allied with Saddam Hussein against Iran’s ruling regime. It formed an armed force in Iraq and carried out sabotage operations inside Iran. Its presence beside Saddam’s forces left a lasting mark on its reputation among Iranians, including opponents of the Islamic Republic. Evidence also links Saddam’s use of the organization to operations against his domestic opponents; the MEK denies that role. Its Iraqi base gave it the means to conduct cross-border operations while making its fate dependent on changes in Iraqi power. ^{[3][4][11][15]}

In 1988, Iran’s ruling regime massacred long-imprisoned MEK members and supporters. The killings were a grave episode in the regime’s repression of political prisoners and remained part of the organization’s account of its conflict with Tehran. The MEK continued armed activity in later years, including the assassination of Iranian prison-system director Asadollah Lajevardi in 1998. Its military and political campaigns therefore continued well after the Iran–Iraq War ended, even as its leaders sought support in Western capitals. ^[1][15][18]

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 transformed the organization’s position. Coalition forces bombed its units, reached a cease-fire with it, then disarmed and protected its members. On December 9, Iraq’s Governing Council announced plans to expel the MEK. Coalition administrator Paul Bremer urged that members be resettled in countries other than Iran, where they faced a record of severe persecution. Following the organization’s formal renunciation of violence in 2004, the United States acknowledged protected-persons status for its members at Camp Ashraf. In February 2006, coalition deputy commander John D. Gardner reaffirmed responsibility for the residents’ security and rights. ^[3][6][11]

Camp Ashraf’s position became more precarious as Iraqi authorities sought control. During summer 2008, Iraqi politicians tied to Tehran pressed Washington to transfer authority over the camp to Baghdad. Camp Ashraf passed from U.S. protection to Iraqi control in 2009. On April 8, 2011, Iraqi army forces assaulted the camp, where about 3,400 MEK members lived, killing at least 34 residents, including at least seven women. Baghdad initially denied that shots had been fired and later gave a lower death toll. After the assault, Yahya Rahim Safavi, a military adviser to Ali Khamenei, urged Baghdad to continue attacking the organization’s base. ^[7][8]

The assault sharpened concerns about the residents’ safety and their prospects for leaving Iraq. Returning members to Iran against their will raised serious concerns in light of the regime’s treatment of the organization. Residents subsequently moved from Camp Ashraf through other arrangements, including Camp Liberty, before many were resettled in Albania. An Iraqi human rights report recorded another deadly attack at Camp Ashraf in 2013, when about 100 members remained there. By 2016, the organization’s fighters based in Iraq had relocated elsewhere under arrangements involving the United States and United Nations. ^[7][15][17]

Structure and leadership

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi became the MEK’s central leaders after its founding generation. Massoud directed the military faction he built in Iraq, while Maryam developed the organization’s political presence from Paris and later became joint leader. She serves as the leading public figure of the NCRI and its campaign to replace Iran’s ruling regime. The council has maintained offices in several capitals, including Washington, and has sought audiences among lawmakers and former officials abroad. Its political role connects the MEK’s exile organization to a broader claim to represent an alternative government for Iran. ^{[1][2][4][12]}

The NCRI’s relationship with the MEK matters because the two names can suggest separate movements. The MEK forms the council’s core, while the NCRI presents the opposition campaign in political and diplomatic settings. Maryam Rajavi has been described by the council as its president-elect. That is a role within the opposition coalition, not an elected office of the Iranian state. Massoud Rajavi’s long absence from public view has made Maryam the movement’s principal visible leader. ^{[1][2][12][15]}

At a Paris rally on July 9, 2016, former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki Al Faisal addressed Maryam Rajavi and joined calls for regime change in Iran. He held no official Saudi position at the time. His appearance illustrated the council’s ability to attract prominent international supporters, while the organization’s leadership and membership remained Iranian. During the opposition movement that followed Mahsa Amini’s death, the MEK remained a distinct current alongside monarchists, nationalists, leftists and other anti-regime groups. Opposition to the Islamic Republic did not make those currents a unified movement under MEK leadership. ^[12][13]

Funding and sponsors

Saddam Hussein’s Iraq provided the organization with military backing and a base from which to oppose Tehran during the Iran–Iraq War. That historical sponsorship was tied to the MEK’s armed operations and its long residence in Iraq. The fall of Saddam’s government removed that relationship and placed its members under coalition control. Their disarmament in 2003 changed the practical basis on which the organization could operate from Iraqi territory. Saddam’s support remains a central fact in assessing its wartime alliances, regardless of its later political activity in Europe and North America. ^[3][4][11]

Claims of U.S. sponsorship require a distinction between perception and established policy. Belief that Washington backed Iranian opposition groups circulated widely, but U.S. law constrained funding of the designated MEK. The NCRI lobbied Congress to change those constraints. Coalition protection of disarmed members at Camp Ashraf concerned their security and legal status; it did not itself establish sponsorship of the organization’s political campaign. Prince Turki’s 2016 speech likewise demonstrated public support for regime change, not proof of Saudi state funding. ^[4][6][12]

Attacks and operations

The organization’s violent record spans different enemies and periods. Its anti-shah campaign included the killing of five American military technicians in 1970 and 1971 and the failed attempt to kidnap Ambassador Douglas MacArthur III. After the revolution, its conflict shifted to the Islamic Republic. From Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War, it formed an armed force and conducted sabotage inside Iran in alliance with Saddam Hussein. The regime’s imprisonment and execution of MEK members did not end that campaign; the organization continued to use violence against Iranian state targets. ^{[1][3][4][10]}

In 1998, the MEK assassinated Asadollah Lajevardi, who had directed Iran’s prison system. In February 2000, it launched 12 attacks against Iran under the name “Operation Great Bahman.” It also carried out mortar attacks and raids against Iranian government buildings in 2000 and 2001. These operations are part of the record against which later claims of renouncing violence must be judged. Its formal renunciation came in 2004, after coalition forces had disarmed its members in Iraq. ^[3][9][10]

The organization also became known for intelligence disclosures. In mid-2002, it released major information about Iran’s nuclear activities, including previously undisclosed facilities at Natanz and Arak. The disclosures prompted U.S. investigation and increased international scrutiny of the regime’s nuclear program. They gave the exiled opposition a role in a major security issue beyond its armed campaign. Disclosure of facilities and claims about their purpose remain distinct matters: the revelations exposed activities requiring examination, while investigation and inspection addressed what those activities meant. ^[5]

Its intelligence role has also been a target of disinformation. A report claiming that an MEK leader secretly visited Israel to meet Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad chief Yossi Cohen rested on a fabricated social-media profile. The reported meeting supplies no evidence of an MEK alliance with Israeli leaders. Separately, a plot targeting an organization rally in Paris in 2018 was reportedly foiled by Mossad. These are different episodes: the fabricated account concerns a meeting that did not occur, while the Paris plot concerned a threat to an opposition gathering. ^[14]

Designations and international status

The United States placed the MEK on its Foreign Terrorist Organizations list when that list began in 1997. The designation reflected a history that included attacks on Americans and subsequent armed operations. European authorities also designated the organization. Its later disarmament, formal renunciation of violence and continued listing prompted legal and political disputes over how a past record should bear on a current designation. The United States removed the MEK from its list in 2012, and the European Union also lifted its former designation. Removal changed its legal status; it did not erase the attacks in its history. ^{[3][9][10][11]}

In November 2007, the United Kingdom’s Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission ordered the organization removed from the British list of banned groups. A European court had also challenged aspects of its listing. These decisions formed part of a broader reassessment of the MEK’s status after it ceased armed activity. At the same time, coalition authorities in Iraq had to address the immediate safety of disarmed members, regardless of the continuing U.S. designation. Their protected-persons status and the separate question of whether the organization belonged on a terrorist list were related but distinct legal matters. ^[6][7][9]

Camp Ashraf made that distinction urgent. U.S. forces disarmed the group in 2003 and assumed responsibility for residents’ protection, while Iraq’s Governing Council sought their expulsion. After authority passed to Baghdad, the April 8 assault killed at least 34 residents. The episode demonstrated that removal from a terrorist list and protection against violence by state forces involved separate decisions. It also intensified the search for places willing to receive former Camp Ashraf residents without forcibly returning them to Iran. ^[6][7][8]

Current status

The MEK continues as an exiled Iranian opposition organization, with Maryam Rajavi prominent in the NCRI’s campaign against the Islamic Republic. Its members’ departure from Iraq ended the Camp Ashraf phase that had connected the organization to Saddam Hussein’s state and, after 2003, to coalition and Iraqi authorities. Members later established a presence at Ashraf 3 in Albania. The movement maintains international political activity, while its historical armed operations, former designations and wartime alliance remain essential to an account of its development. ^[12][15][16]

The protests following Mahsa Amini’s death showed an Iranian opposition made up of multiple currents. The MEK was one of them, alongside monarchists, nationalists, leftists and others. Its early nuclear disclosures remain a significant contribution to international scrutiny of Tehran; its members’ persecution and the deadly assaults at Camp Ashraf remain significant parts of its history. The organization’s claim to a future political role must be understood alongside that full record and the continued diversity of opposition to Iran’s ruling regime. ^[5][7][13]