Why Iran’s regime targets MEK members in Albania

Albanian police say they have discovered an Iranian paramilitary network that planned attacks against the MEK members in Albania.

The country’s police chief, Ardi Veliu, said the foreign wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards operated an “active terrorist cell” targeting members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, in Albania.

Albanian police stated in a statement that two Iranian security officials led the cell from Tehran. It said the network was allegedly linked to organized crime groups in Turkey and used a former MEK member to collect information in Albania.

It is worth mentioning that in 2016, MEK members were transferred from Camp Liberty in Iraq to Albania. Yet the Iranian regime, which only seeks a way to eliminate the MEK, stationed agents of its Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) at its embassy in Tirana, and transferred an MOIS official , Mustafa Rudaki, from Iran’s embassy in Austria to Albania, to plan and carry out terrorist operations against the MEK.

In March 2018, MOIS and Iran’s embassy in Albania were planning to carry out a car-bomb attack against PMOI/MEK members in Tirana at their Nowruz celebration. But Albanian security services succeed to discover and foil the regime’s terror plot. One year later, Albania expelled two Iranian diplomats from its soil, including the regime’s ambassador and Mostafa Rudaki, a well-known intelligence agent.

This is of course not the regime’s first terror attempt against the MEK and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in the past two years. On July 1, 2018, Belgian security agencies arrested a senior diplomat credited in the Iranian embassy in Vienna for plotting a bomb attack against the grand gathering of the NCRI in Paris. He had personally delivered an explosive device to a terrorist couple to bomb the gathering.

But, the Iranian regime’s terrorist activities against MEK members in past three years haven’t been limited to the soil of Europe. They even extended their murderous operations against the Iranian opposition (MEK) to American soil. On August 9, US security services arrested two MOIS agents for espionage and planning attacks against MEK members and supporters in the US.

Since the regime came to power in 1979, it has been seeking to establish a theocracy, and the only Muslim group who stood up against this regime and defended the right of the Iranian people was the MEK; therefore, the MEK network grew rapidly in two years after revolution. The regime answered the MEK’s popularity with brutal crackdown.

Right now the MEK enjoys not only the support of Iranians inside country but also the support of many European and American personalities and lawmakers.

Currently, there is no Iranian opposition organization as organized as the MEK with such a political and social power, inside Iran or abroad. This is why the regime’s state-run media is constantly talking about the MEK and the activities of its network of resistance units inside Iran. The regime officials have confessed on several occasions that despite their censorship of truth and spread of propaganda against the MEK, the young generation are increasingly showing tendency toward the MEK. 

The Iranian regime knows that the MEK is the only organization that is capable to lead the Iranian society and has the legitimacy to replace the regime.  Therefore, the regime in last 40 years has done everything to eliminate the MEK.

More about home of MEK members in Albania