Article

2009-07-20 Afghanistan

Forty MKO terrorist killed in Taliban clashes

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Fred 2009-07-20 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top
File under: Taliban

#1 Wait, what?!?

This strikes me as pretty bizarre. And by "pretty bizarre" I mean "It's Press TV Iran, so it's probably not true." Then again, Iran blamed MKO for the Reza Shrine bombing in 1994(?), and that was a Ramzi Yousef operation.

So could we be seeing renewed MKO-Baluch cooperation? And under the aegis of a Gulf State intelligence agency? And what, exactly, is the Taliban interest here?

In any case, this seems worth following up on.

Posted by Plastic Snoopy 2009-07-20 00:20|| 2009-07-20 00:20|| Front Page Top

#2 Gorram it I wish I'd saved Dan Darling's archives.

Posted by Plastic Snoopy 2009-07-20 00:21|| 2009-07-20 00:21|| Front Page Top

#3 Yeah...I was going to call for the salt shaker.

Posted by anymouse">anymouse 2009-07-20 01:41|| http://theworldsworstblog-really.blogspot.com/]">[http://theworldsworstblog-really.blogspot.com/] 2009-07-20 01:41|| Front Page Top

#4 Google him, Plastic Snoopy. There's lots of stuff preserved on the interwebs.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2009-07-20 08:54|| 2009-07-20 08:54|| Front Page Top

#5 Cover for the bodies of some of those killed during protests?

And why would Iran think the UAE is so hostile to deserve making up this kind of crap?

Posted by gorb 2009-07-20 09:46|| 2009-07-20 09:46|| Front Page Top

#6 Because Iran and UAE claim large chunks of each others' territory. E.g. Abu Musa seized by Iran in 1971.

Posted by ed 2009-07-20 09:54|| 2009-07-20 09:54|| Front Page Top

#7 Not a good way to get it back. But Iran hasn't done anything intelligent since the "Revolution".

Posted by gorb 2009-07-20 10:16|| 2009-07-20 10:16|| Front Page Top

#8 Iran trots out the MKO regularly as part whipping boy, part straw man. There's no telling how much, if any, truth is involved in this story.

Verlaine and Bodyguard would know a lot more about it than I do, but I'm guessing it's been at least six years since they were an active organization. They fell into our hands as a Saddam-sponsored commie organization directed against Iran. We don't generically get along well with commie organizations, and much less so during the Bush years. So it's not like they became an instrument of American policy on May 1st, 2003. They're protected persons under the 4th Geneva convention, and I think we probably use them as an occasional boogeyman against the ayatollahs, but if they're an active subversion group that'd jeopardize their status. As a condition of the cease-fire agreement, the group relinquished its weapons, including tanks, armored vehicles, and heavy artillery.

Jamestown.org has a decent discussion of MKO. FAS has a write-up on them, too, but I don't think anybody's tracking them closely these days, except for Iran.

Posted by Fred 2009-07-20 13:38|| 2009-07-20 13:38|| Front Page Top

#9 "We don't generically get along well with commie organizations, and much less so during the Bush years."

Quibble. The Iraqi Communist Party has generally played a positive role in post-2003 Iraq, supportig secularism, opposing sectarianism, opposing the armed insurgency. Only good criticism I could make would be that IIUC they take a fairly unreasonable position on the oil law, but thats hardly a deal killer (Iraq will probably end up with a govt run oil industry anyway)

IIUC at least some Iranian Communist elements have promise to behave similarly.

MKO, OTOH, has been Saddam backed and has used more or less overtly terrorist means. thats the problem, not residual pseudo leninism.

The role of communist parties depends on history and on local social conditions.

Posted by liberal hawk 2009-07-20 15:01|| 2009-07-20 15:01|| Front Page Top

#10 tw: Yeah, all of his Winds stuff is still there, plus the many articles he posted here, along with a few comments, as well as a few odd articles in other places. I thought most of his regnum crucis blog work was lost, but more of it survived on internet wayback machine than I remembered.

Some of the US gov't information on the Iranian nuclear program supposedly came from MeK. That's really the last time I'd heard of them cropping up in a major news story, other than the "strange stories of the Iraqi occupation" variety.

I'd always taken the position that the Iranian government's view of the 1994 shrine bombing was correct: there was MeK invovlement. But also, Ramzi Yousef was involved, and he had a Lashkar e Jhangvi background. B. Raman had a somewhat rambling article touching on these points back in 2002. http://southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers5%5Cpaper484.html

On the face of it, I think it makes sense. Lashkar e Jhangvi is (name changes notwithstanding) a strongly anti-Shia organization, as are the Baluch people as a whole. MeK was obviously opposed to the Iranian regime. The common thread was Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

So my interest in this article is mainly historical, although the allegations in the article are interesting. MeK comes into Afghanistan to cross into Iran. So this is W. Afghanistan, obviously. And there are Baluch there, so I would presume that Baluch are the vector. Iran Press TV claims that the MeK turned back, and were engaged by Taliban. Taliban are Pashtun...

I take Fred's point about Iran using MeK as an all-purpose hobgoblin. I recall a recent statement where some government official claimed the student protesters were in contact with MKO, which is of course ridiculous. But I'd really like to know if there's truth to this article.

Posted by Plastic Snoopy 2009-07-20 19:01|| 2009-07-20 19:01|| Front Page Top

#11 http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=271172&D=2009-06-04

Posted by Plastic Snoopy 2009-07-20 19:58|| 2009-07-20 19:58|| Front Page Top

#12 A nice analysis, Plastic Snoopy. Thank you! I look forward to more of those from your keyboard.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2009-07-20 22:53|| 2009-07-20 22:53|| Front Page Top

23:55 Broadhead6
23:46 Broadhead6
23:33 Broadhead6
22:59 KBK
22:53 trailing wife
22:49 AzCat
22:47 remoteman
22:30 JosephMendiola
22:26 JosephMendiola
22:16 OldSpook
22:15 OldSpook
22:09 trailing wife
22:07 JosephMendiola
22:02 JosephMendiola
21:59 JosephMendiola
21:57 Dale
21:57 Glenmore
21:52 Glenmore
21:36 Redneck Jim
21:35 tipover
21:33 tu3031
21:30 Lone Ranger
21:28 KBK
21:21 Besoeker