TEHRAN (Dispatches) – Iran has hit out the U.S. and the EU for harboring the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO or MEK) terrorist group, which has murdered thousands of Iranians.
"Aug. 29, the national Day of Fight Against Terrorism, is the time to remember Prz Rajai & PM Bahonar who, 39yrs ago today, were martyred in a bombing by the MEK terrorist group. Despite assassinating 1000s Iranians & fighting alongside Saddam, MEK is sheltered by the US & EU,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a tweet on Saturday, commemorating the national Day of Fight Against Terrorism.
The occasion is named after the 1981 assassination of then president Muhammad Ali Rajaei and prime minister Muhammad Javad Bahonar.
The two and several other officials had convened at the Tehran office of the Iranian prime minister in a meeting of Iran’s Supreme Defense Council when a bomb explosion ripped through the building.
Survivors said an aide, identified as Massoud Kashmiri, had brought a briefcase into the conference room and then left.
Subsequent investigations revealed that Kashmiri was an MKO operative, who had infiltrated the then-prime minister’s office disguised as a state security official.
The MKO has conducted numerous assassinations and bombings against Iranian statesmen and civilians since the 1979 victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Its members fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where they enjoyed Saddam’s backing.
Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist assaults since the Revolution, about 12,000 have fallen victim to the MKO’s acts of terror.
The anti-Iran cult was on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations until 2012. Major European countries, including France, have also removed it from their blacklists.