The MEK Iranian dissident organization “poses the greatest internal existential danger to the oppressive Iranian Regime” which is “deathly afraid” of the “very committed, very organized, and very resourceful” resistance group, according to author and national security expert L. Todd Wood, whose latest book details the origins and firsthand accounts of many of its current members who seek a free and democratic Iran, all while Tehran and its proxies continue destabilizing acts that risk sparking an even broader Middle East conflict.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Wood, a political analyst, discussed the exiled People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) opposition group — the subject of his recently-published book, Paying the Price: The Untold Story of the Iranian Resistance — and its formation “as a resistance unit against the Shah,” as well as the current threats it poses to today’s theocratic regime, as he highlighted the regime’s brutality as well as the resistance as a viable alternative.
“They were working with the mullahs of Iran [then] but when the power shifted, the mullahs saw an opportunity and took power and persecuted the MEK,” he noted. “They had massive power inside the country at a grassroots level, and the mullahs went on a serious repression campaign murdering and imprisoning many of them.”
“In 1988, they killed 30,000 of them in one month,” he added, noting that he had interviewed many survivors.
Over time, Wood explained, the group “developed a force on the Iranian border and a lot of them escaped to the border inside then [Iraqi dictator] Saddam’s Hussein’s protection.”
“They had 300 armored vehicles, a 10,000-man army, [and] they conducted incursions inside of Iran, and really threatened the regime,” he said. “And when the Gulf War happened the Bush administration sent the US army there to disarm them, because they thought they were terrorists.”
Subsequently, he added, “a U.S. judge forced the Clinton State Department to take them off the terrorist list because there was no evidence [showing that to be true],” and “when the Obama administration came in they allowed the Iranian intelligence services and some of their proxy forces to begin assassinating them.”
“A lot of the operations against them were raids on the camp, where hundreds were killed at a time, and when they later moved into Camp Liberty near Baghdad they had multiple missile strikes on that facility,” he continued.
Eventually, he noted, the United States brokered a deal to relocate the remaining 3,000 MEK members to Albania, establishing the group’s current headquarters — now dubbed “Ashraf-3,” and Wood became the “first journalist” to visit them there:
I spent a lot of time with members of the group, a lot of time with survivors from 1988, a lot of time with the females — it’s a female run organization essentially. They have an internet presence where they do a lot of social media work; and they have a satellite network where they beam information into Iran.
He then called attention to the internationally recognized “Ten Point Plan” put together by President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) Maryam Rajavi, which aims to ensure Iranians’ freedom of expression and assembly, as well as the right to choose their elected leaders, as part of the path toward a free, secular, and democratic Iran.
“It’s essentially freedom of speech, freedom of religion, tolerance, [and so on],” he explained, adding that “free markets is the goal of the MEK in the long run.”
Congressional resolution H.Res.100, sponsored by 223 U.S. House members last year supported Iran’s uprisings for a secular republic, as well as the “Ten Point Plan.”
Wood also said he “spent a lot of time at their headquarters in Paris where they disseminate a lot of information into Iran — kind of like Voice of America.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time with all the different elements of the MEK and I just thought it should be a story to tell,” he added.
Most of his new book, he noted, is “firsthand transcriptions of the interviews I did with a lot of people, some history of the organization, and then what’s been happening lately with their activities.”
Despite having done business with 40 countries as a bond trader, served in the military, and travelled the world, Wood was surprised he had “never heard” of the Iranian resistance group.
“I found them fascinating,” he said. “And I learned a lot about them several years ago.”
According to Wood, the MEK currently has “a lot of resistance units,” with the group itself claiming a thousand across the country and having “provided video maps for years of different attacks against government facilities, burning of the signs of the ayatollahs, and more.”
He also attributed the intensification and structure of the current uprisings in Iran to the dissident group to a large degree.
“It’s not being formed and fostered by the monarchists or the royal family, the remnants of the Shah dynasty,” he said. “A lot of it is spontaneous, but it’s being run a lot by, I think, the MEK.”
Citing the “passion” he has seen possessed by many of the demonstrating women and girls who he has met, Wood described the details they shared about their joining the MEK, and their journey to become a freedom fighter against the current theocratic regime.”
Having originally exposed Iran’s nuclear program roughly two decades ago, Wood confirmed that the group continues to undertake similar activities.
“Iran is essentially a really repressive oligarchy [and] the resistance is real,” he stated, insisting that much of it can be attributed to the MEK, who he described as “very committed, very organized, and very resourceful.”
“Whether it be on the internet, whether it be rebuilding their camps, or whether it be building an army, the Iranians know that they’re serious, and so they’re very deathly afraid of them in my experience,” he added. “I don’t think there’s any other organization that can show the same level of organization and commitment. There obviously are others, but I don’t know of any that have the same stature.”
Describing his new book as mostly the “stenography of the interviews I did with these people; with the females, young to old; with the survivors; and with some of the original founders that were involved early,” Wood maintained that he “really got a good cross section of personal interviews with these people.”
“People read the book and what they get is the sense of resilience and commitment these people have,” he concluded.
Last year, over one hundred former world leaders insisted that the Islamic Republic must be held accountable for its long-running crimes against humanity, as protests swept Iran following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the Islamic theocracy’s notorious “morality police” for violating strict requirements for women to keep their heads covered in public.
Since then, a slew of incidents involving abuses and even deaths at the hands of the regime have been documented amid an ongoing clampdown on protests, with clips circulating showing Iranian regime officers brutally assaulting protesters.
The Iranian authoritarian regime, which is the largest state sponsor of terrorism worldwide, backs three key terror groups inciting current Mideast turmoil — Gaza-based Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Last week, three American troops were killed and 25 injured on a military base in Jordan in a drone attack by Iran-backed militias, marking the first U.S. troop casualties over a series of attacks on American forces by Iranian-aligned groups since the Israel-Hamas conflict began in October.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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