Rajavi Prays for Iran, Calls for the Overthrow of Khomeini

The Associated Press
Thursday, June 12, 1986

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The leader of Iran's main opposition group visited the graves of holy martyrs of the Shiite Moslem sect and urged Iranians to overthrow the Khomeini regime, the state-run Iraqi News Agency reported Thursday.

The report was the first in Iraq on the activities of Massoud Rajavi, leader of the Mujahedeen, since he arrived in Baghdad from France on Saturday.

The Mujahedeen claim the move to Iraq was voluntary, a "new stage" in the fight to topple the Islamic fundamentalist regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeinei.

French observers in Paris, however, have said they believe Rajavi's departure was engineered by France in a bid to normalize relations with Iran and help win freedom for nine French hostages abducted by Moslem extremists in Lebanon.

Iran, which has been at war with Iraq since September 1980, is predominantly Shiite. Rajavi and his wife, Maryam, co-leader of the Mujahedeen, visited Shiite holy shrines in Najaf and Karbala, south of Baghdad, the agency said.

Iraqi television, which can reach parts of Iran, reported on the visits in a broadcast in Farsi, the Iranian language.

Khomeini lived 14 years in exile in Najaf. He lived briefly in Paris before the Shah fled into exile in January 1979.

Rajavi and his wife prayed at the grave of Imam Ali, cousin of Islam's Prophet Mohammed and revered by the Shiites as a holy martyr.

Rajavi also visited the tomb of Imam Ali's son, Hussein, in Karbala, and handed out a list of 12,000 names of Iranians allegedly killed by the authorities in Tehran, the agency said. He was quoted by the news agency as calling on Iranians to "bring down Khomeini and bring about peace and freedom.

"Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz told a news conference Tuesday in Paris that his country would provide facilities for Rajavi and his guerrillas to step up military operations inside Iran "to overthrow the government that wants to overthrow us."

OPPONENTS OF KHOMEINI SAID TO LEAVE FRANCE FOR IRAN-IRAQ BORDER

OPPONENTS OF KHOMEINI SAID TO LEAVE FRANCE FOR IRAN-IRAQ BORDER
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN, Special to the New York Times
The New York Times

June 10, 1986

More than 1,000 members of the largest group opposing the Iranian Government have left their headquarters in suburban Paris for an area on the Iran-Iraq border, the group said here today.

The members of the left-wing group, the People's Mujahedeen, apparently left in the weeks before their leader, Massoud Rajavi, left Paris for Iraq on Saturday. Mr. Rajavi's unexpected departure was seen here as part of an effort to restore normal ties between France and Iran and, ultimately, to help win the release of eight or nine Frenchmen being held hostage by pro-Iranian gunmen in Lebanon.

The group, in a communique issued from London today, said that Mr. Rajavi arrived in Iraq early Sunday. He was said to have been greeted by several senior Iraqi officials in the kind of ceremony normally accorded a visiting government leader.

Mr. Rajavi had been living in exile in Paris since 1981 and asserted that he led a network inside Iran of opponents of the fundamentalist Islamic rule of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Iranian Government had for years complained to the French about Mr. Rajavi's activities in France and had demanded that they be restricted.


Police Raid Headquarters

On Saturday, the French police raided Mr. Rajavi's headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise, a Paris suburb, checking the identity papers of the members of the Mujahedeen. Hours later, Mr. Rajavi left by private plane for Iraq.

The French authorities said Mr. Rajavi's departure was ''voluntary'' and they have refused to link it to negotiations aimed at freeing the French hostages being held in Lebanon. But it is widely assumed here that Mr. Rajavi's effective expulsion from France, along with that of a large number of his followers, was aimed at creating conditions for the hostages' release.

In a series of negotiations between France and Iran since the end of March, the Iranians have specified several conditions for the resumption of normal relations. In addition to the expulsion of Mr. Rajavi, the Iranian demands include the repayment of a $1 billion loan made to France before Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlevi was deposed in 1979, and an end to French support for Iraq in the six-year-old Persian Gulf war.


Readiness for Some Concessions

The French have indicated that they are prepared to make concessions on some of the Iranian demands, but they have said they would not change their basic policy of support for Iraq.

In their communique, the Mujahedeen organization said today that Mr. Rajavi went to Iraq ''to neutralize'' what it called the ''Khomeini regime's conspiracies,'' a reference to the Iranian request that anti-Government activities be restricted.

''The Khomeini regime, being faced with daily worsening internal crises, is once again resorting to its customary methods, including hostage-taking and political blackmail, in a bid to pressure other countries to restrict the just Iranian resistance,'' the communique said.

The communique said the 1,000 Mujahedeen members who left in the last several weeks would go to an area on the Iran-Iraq border, presumably to join anti-Government guerrilla forces that the group says it maintains there.

After five years of French exile, Massoud Rajavi has taken his ...

After five years of French exile, Massoud Rajavi has taken his ...

By  ELAINE GANLEY

June 10, 1986

Associated Press

PARIS (AP) _ After five years of French exile, Massoud Rajavi has taken his Iranian opposition movment to Iraq where he is expected to step up guerrilla action against the regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The leader of the Mujahedeen guerrillas focused on political opposition while in France, collected Western support and built a propaganda machine. But now Rajavi risks the scorn of Iranians by operating out of Iraq, a country that is at war with his homeland.

Some experts believe that the move may have some short-term advantages, but that it will ultimately cost the Mujahedeen credibility with Iranians.

″Now they will be totally identified with the Iraqis and seen as collaborators, traitors cooperating with the enemy in time of war,″ said exiled Iranian journalist Amir Taheri.

Rajavi and his wife left their fortified compound north of Paris on Saturday under police escort and flew to Baghdad where they joined as many as 1,000 Mujahedeen followers who reportedly slipped out of France earlier.

A Mujahedeen statement said the move to Iraq, at war with Iran for nearly six years, was voluntary and a ″new stage in preparation for the general uprising″ against Khomeini.

But French observers agree that Rajavi’s departure was engineered by France in a bid to normalize relations with Iran and help win freedom for nine French hostages in Lebanon.

Iran had demanded the extradition of Rajavi, whose Islamic leftist guerrillas were a decisive force in the 1979 revolution that brought Khomeini to power. But they soon became the ruling mullahs’ most vocal enemy and Rajavi fled the country to lead the only exile group with an armed presence inside Iran.

With his move to Iraq, Rajavi ″is a dead man committing suicide,″ said former President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, who fled to France with Rajavi in 1981.

Rajavi’s ties to Iraq are well known and were the source of his bitter 1984 split with Bani-Sadr. The Mujahedeen maintain a radio transmitter in Iraq, and the Baghdad government devotes time to Mujahedeen propaganda in national broadcasts.

According to Taheri, who is considered independent of the various Iranian opposition groups, the Mujahedeen have a 2,000-strong militia in Tawilah, in Iraqi Kurdistan, about 13 miles from the Iranian frontier. ″They already claimed their arrival is the start of a new phase, so they have to do something in the next few weeks,″ Taheri said.

The Mujahedeen have maintained a separate military command in Iran, which claimed responsibility for occasional guerrilla attacks.

Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi deputy premier and foreign minister, said Tuesday that the Mujahedeen plan to step up military action inside Iran.

″They have been doing so in the past, and with the presence of their leaders in a neighboring country and with the facilities we’re going to provide them,″ they will continue on a larger scale, he told a news conference.

Aziz, who was on a two-day visit to Paris, said ″thousands″ of Mujahedeen were based in Iraq before Rajavi arrived.

French relations with Iran ″can in no way effect relations between France and Iraq,″ Aziz told a news conference.

Iran has demanded that France sign no future arms contracts with Iraq. But French President Jacques Chirac, who in 1974 began the close trade relationship, has said that France would not forsake Iraq.

Taheri believes the move to Iraq will reunify the military and political struggles and renew links with Kurdish insurgents.

But ″in the long term, their fate now depends on (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein’s fate. If Saddam wins the war, OK. But they have tied their fate to the fate of someone beyond their control,″ Taheri said. ″They’ve lost their independence.″

″They have become prisoners of Iraq,″ said a researcher on Iran at the French National Center for Scientific Research, speaking on condition he not be named.

From France, Rajavi, 38, directed a lobbying and image-building campaign aimed mainly at Western governments. Iran Liberation, the Mujahedeen weekly, showed photographs of his emissaries attending U.N. meetings and shaking hands with party and government leaders around Europe.

But Baghdad is not a media center and the move to Iraq will likely diminish the publicity.

There are similarities between the exiles of Rajavi and Khomeini, who spent 14 years in Iraq before moving to France. From another Paris suburb, the aging ayatollah mounted the propaganda campaign that helped bring him to power.

Like Khomeini, the Mujahedeen were adversaries of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. The shah imprisoned Rajavi for nearly eight years.

The Mujahedeen are criticized by other opposition groups as responsible for thousands of deaths in the early days of the revolution. And critics say the Mujahedeen are caught up in a cult-like reverence for Rajavi.

Rajavi’s 1985 marriage to Maryam, a Mujahedeen member, was presented as an ″historic event,″ and she was named co-leader of the movement.

In Europe, the Mujahedeen ″marched, made slogans. It was easy,″ said former Teheran University professor Kazem Vadiei, now in exile. ″In Iraq, it’s a matter of making war. We’ll see if they’re ready to go to war.″

Aziz said that Iraq would provide facilities for Rajavi and his Mujahedeen fighters to step up military action inside their homeland ″to overthrow the government that wants to overthrow us.″

IRANIAN DISSIDENT LEAVES FRANCE UNDER PRESSURE

IRANIAN DISSIDENT LEAVES FRANCE UNDER PRESSURE
Special to the New York Times
New York Times

June 8, 1986

An Iranian opposition leader left France under Government pressure today in a move apparently intended to improve French relations with Iran and speed the release of French hostages held in Lebanon.

The opposition leader, Massoud Rajavi, head of the Iranian People's Mujahedeen, his wife and three companions were taken under police escort from their heavily guarded headquarters near Paris and put on a private plane for an unannounced destination.

Later, the People's Mujahedeen issued a statement in London saying that Mr. Rajavi had arrived in Baghdad and was greeted by Iraqi leaders.

French officials said Mr. Rajavi, who fled Iran in 1981, had left France voluntarily and had not been expelled.

But a Foreign Ministry spokesman recalled that the new French Government of Prime Minister Jacques Chirac had stated that it sought to restore normal relations with Iran and had criticized what it called excesses committed by exiled Iranian refugees.

Mr. Rajavi's departure is the latest of several gestures made by France to Iran in a bid to improve relations.

The French Government has made it clear that it hopes Iran will use its influence to gain the release of nine French hostages held in Lebanon.

Last month France opened negotiations with Iran to resolve several disputes, including repayment of a $1.3 billion Iranian loan to France.

Iran's Deputy Prime Minister, Ali Reza Moayeri, on a visit to Paris last month at the head of a large delegation, said repayment of the loan was one of three conditions for improved relations. The others are extradition of Iranian opposition leaders living in France and an end to French arms deliveries to Iraq, which has been at war with Iran for six years.

Prime Minister Chirac subsequently said France would not send exiled opposition leaders back to Iran, but he warned them to keep out of Iranian politics while they are here. He also refused to end France's close political and military ties with Baghdad.

Since 1981 the People's Mujahedeen has operated an underground resistance movement inside Iran and a worldwide publicity campaign from its headquarters in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris.

French officials say many members of the movement have left France in the last few weeks. There has been speculation that the group will set up a new headquarters in Jordan or Iraq. Another prominent opposition leader, former President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, who fled Iran with Mr. Rajavi but subsequently quarreled with him, remains in exile in France. Today Mr. Bani-Sadr said he did not expect to be asked to leave.

Rajavi's Move to Iraq Part of New Phase in War Against Iran

The Associated Press
Sunday, June 8, 1986
By SAMIR F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Massoud Rajavi, the leader of Iran's main opposition group, left France and came to Iraq to lead an armed struggle against Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's regime, the group announced Sunday.

Rajavi and his wife, Maryam, head the leftist Iranian People's Mujahedeen Resistance. They arrived here Saturday from Paris where they had been living in exile since fleeing Iran in 1981.

A delegation of high-ranking Iraqi officials including Cabinet ministers were at the airport to greet them after their hasty departure from France.

Rajavi's arrival was reported in state-run newspapers, but nothing was said about his whereabouts and activities.

It is not known if he has been granted asylum, and officials were not available for comment Sunday.

Rajavi left Paris came amid stepped-up French efforts to win freedom for nine Frenchmen kidnapped in Lebanon. Iran is thought to have connections with the Islamic Jihad _ or Islamic Holy War _ group that claims to hold four of the hostages. Islamic Jihad pledges loyalty to Khomeini, Iran's spiritual and political leader.

Vice Premier Ali Reza Moayeri of Iran said May 22 that his country demanded the extradition of exiles "with blood on their hands," which was believed to be a clear reference to Rajavi. On the same day, French Premier Jacques Chirac said his government would crack down on activities incompatible with political asylum in France.

But a Mujahedeen statement distributed in London said Rajavi left France by choice as the first step in moving an armed struggle into Iran.

The statement claimed that over 1,000 Mujahedeen fighters had gradually left France for Iraq “with the aim of joining the resistance based on Iranian borders.” Iraq and Iran have been locked in a border war since September 1980.

The Mujahedeen statement said Rajavi went from Baghdad's airport to Najaf and Karbala, two Shiite Moslem holy cities in southern Iraq.

Imam Ali, founder of the Shiite sect and a cousin of Islam's prophet Mohammed is buried in Najaf, 93 miles south of Baghdad. Karbala, 64 miles south of Baghdad, is the site where Imam Hussein, a son of Imam Ali, is buried.

Rajavi's visit to the cities was seen as a further gesture against Iran, which sought in a recent offensive to capture the two holy shrines.

Khomeini led his resistence movement from Najaf between 1965 and 1978, when he was kicked out of Iraq and moved to France. His power base in France was judged more effective because the advanced communication system made it easier for him to transmit his taped messages against the regime of Shah Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in January 1979 and died in exile in Egypt in July 1980.

A Western diplomat here, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the difficult nature of the Iran-Iraq border would help Rajavi's men establish close contact with Mujahedeen guerrillas operating inside Iran.

Rajavi already has a radio station, believed to be operating from Iraq, that broadcasts anti-Khomeini propaganda.