Former Mujahadeen Khalq Leader Confirms Alleged Iran Terror Plot Conspirator Affiliated With MEK – OpEd

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You’ll recall that the the U.S. claimed that the Iranian alleged conspirator in the terror plot against the Saudi ambassador, Gholam Shakuri, was a Revolutionary Guard (IRG) official.  Though many Iranians have scoured every resource they could think of, none have found evidence of such a person with any IRG affiliation.  If the U.S. has such evidence it ought to produce it if it wants to be believed.  Yesterday, the well-placed Alef site, run by an Iranian majlis member who’s run for president twice, alleged that Shakuri is in fact a high level Mujahadeen al Khalq (MEK) leader.  It offered evidence to support the charge.

Today, the official MEK leadership has denied that Shakuri is a member and the U.S. has also denied the charge.  But in fact, a former high-ranking MEK leader, Massoud Khodabandeh (he has allowed me to use his name), writing in the Gulf2000 listserv, confirmed that Shakuri is in fact an MEK member.  He cautions that there may be more than one Gholam Shakuri, and the one who is the MEK member may not be the same Shakuri the U.S. has named.  While this may be true, this new development moves Shakuri a lot closer to being MEK than being IRG.  And moves the entire U.S. account of this supposed crime closer to the trash heap.

In its story containing the U.S. denial, the NY Times quotes U.S. sources responding to the Iranian charge that Shakuri held or holds a U.S. passport:

Mr. Shakuri is not a United States citizen and does not have an American passport.

I have no doubt that Shakuri is not a U.S. citizen and also that he may not currently have a U.S. passport.  But this statement, at least as portrayed by Scott Shane, does not say the U.S. never issued such a passport in his name.  There are many ways and reasons a non-U.S. citizen may obtain a U.S. passport including fraud and the possibility that Shakuri was performing a task for the U.S. government or CIA and needed such a document.  I am speculating, but in light of the paucity of evidence the U.S. has offered to support its claims, we must parse the information it has distributed to try to determine credibility and accuracy.

There is another intriguing element that the Alef story added to the mix.  It claimed that Interpol had released information allowing confirmation of Shakuri as an MEK official.  The NY Times says this:

An Interpol spokeswoman declined to comment. But an American official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Interpol had discovered no link to the opposition group, calling the Iranian news report “pure fiction.”

While I do not know the protocols that Interpol follows in making public statements, I’d think that if the organization had been portrayed falsely by Iran, that it would want to say so.  I’d also think that the U.S. would be a far more important national partner to Interpol than Iran and that Interpol would also want to deny this story if it were false because the U.S. would benefit from this.  The fact that it refuses to do so raises if not a red, then surely a yellow flag for me.

The fact that a U.S. official seeks to speak on behalf of Interpol and under the cloak of anonymity is highly dubious.  If they want us to believe what they claim, then I’m afraid it will have to be Interpol speaking on its own behalf.

This article appeared at Tikun Olam

Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein is an author, journalist and blogger, with articles appearing in Haaretz, the Jewish Forward, Los Angeles Times, the Guardian’s Comment Is Free, Al Jazeera English, and Alternet. His work has also been in the Seattle Times, American Conservative Magazine, Beliefnet and Tikkun Magazine, where he is on the advisory board. Check out Silverstein's blog at Tikun Olam, one of the earliest liberal Jewish blogs, which he has maintained since February, 2003.

2 thoughts on “Former Mujahadeen Khalq Leader Confirms Alleged Iran Terror Plot Conspirator Affiliated With MEK – OpEd

  • October 21, 2011 at 2:33 am
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    You have one problem. Khodabandeh is an agent of Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

    Reply
  • October 21, 2011 at 8:55 am
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    The iranian regime blames all its problems on the opposition. This is nothing new.

    And Khodabandeh is far from a reliale source, a quick google search shows he uses all his efforts to work agains MEK and that he is often interviewed and cited in Iranian controlled media, such as Press TV. He is also known for having frequent visits to Iran. For him his is a fulltime job, and quite certainly he is getting paid from the Iranian embassy.

    Reply

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