Over the next ten years [1985-1995] I came to know many more people involved in
the organized opposition, particularly those in the National Council of Resistance of
Iran, the political coalition that has set up an Iranian parliament in exile in Paris. During
this period, I began representing this coalition as its media spokesperson and
eventually became its chief congressional liaison. This gave me nearly full access to
the information coming from the coalition's vast network of resistance workers in Iran.
From 1985 to 2003 I managed, along with my colleagues, to gather significant
support on the Hill for condemning the violations of human rights in Iran and for
supporting the establishment of democracy there. We also began releasing crucial
information about the Iranian regime's role in terrorist attacks around the world. In
1995, based on evidence gathered by the Mujahedin-e Khalq sources in Iran, I exposed
Tehran's role in the deadly bombing of the Jewish community center in Argentina, where
nearly 90 people were killed. In 1997 I revealed the details of how Iran masterminded
the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, where 19 Americans servicemen were
killed, and in 1998 I revealed that Iran had test-fired a Shahab-3 missile with a range of
880 miles, allowing it to target most of the capitals in the Middle East. All of these
announcements provided leaders with crucial facts about Iran's role in global terrorist
events and its expanding weapons program, but the two nuclear revelations of 2002
actually changed the course of history.
Speaking out about the regime at press conferences, in lectures, in articles and as a
foreign affairs analyst on the Fox News Channel and other mainstream media has had
its price. My father in Mashhad was repeatedly harassed by the Ministry of Intelligence
and Security (MOIS) after I began activist work in New York and Washington, and he
was eventually arrested and jailed for several months. The regime accused him of
providing funding and assistance to Iran's main opposition movement. In exchange for
his release, they ordered him to go on national TV and denounce me. ...he refused...
I have lost several mentors, close associates, and friends to the regime --
people who devoted their lives to the resistance movement. One was Professor
Kazem Rajavi, the brother of the Iranian resistance leader Massoud Rajavi and
the first ambassador to the United Nations... A Swiss magistrate, Jacques
Antenen, concluded at the end of his investigation that a group of 13 regime
assassins, carrying passports marked "on mission," were the perpetrators of
Rajavi's murder. According to a warrant issued by Antenen, the alleged
murderers flew back to Iran on the afternoon of the killing. The warrant also noted
that an international warrant had previously been issued for the arrest of the
13 alleged members of the hit squad, including Tehran's ambassador
to Germany, Mahammad Mehdi Akhondzadeh Basti. [Editor's note:
This hit man, Basti, was personally appointed by Ahmadinejad in 2006.] ...Mrs.
Zahra Rajabi, a senior figure in the NCRI, was killed by a hit squad in 1996 during a trip
to Turkey... Akbar Ghorbani, who had moved to Turkey, was kidnapped and tortured to
death and buried in the outskirts of Istanbul in January 1992...
Inside Iran, the regime's most infamous attack on the opposition took place in the
summer of 1988, when tens of thousands of political prisoners were executed
on direct orders of Khomeini. The Sunday Telegraph reported in 2001,
"More than 30,000 political prisoners were executed in the 1988 massacre
-- a far greater number than previously suspected."
Background on the MEK and on Alireza Jafarzadeh (from preface
of his book The Iran Threat pp. xvii and xviii.)
Find out how evil the Iran regime really is.
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