Host of MKO Terrorists Cuts Ties With Iran

TEHRAN -- Albania, which has for years hosted anti-Iran terrorists in criminal collusion with the U.S., on Wednesday severed diplomatic ties with Tehran, accusing it of orchestrating a “cyberattack” against Tirana.
“The government has decided with immediate effect to end diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama was quoted as saying in a video message.
The southern European country has ordered Iranian diplomats and embassy staff to leave within 24 hours, following a so-called investigation into the July attack, Rama added.
“This extreme response...is fully proportionate to the gravity and risk of the cyberattack that threatened to paralyze public services, erase digital systems, and hack into state records, steal government intranet electronic communication, and stir chaos and insecurity in the country,” he said.
The United States quickly jumped in defense of its NATO ally, calling for Iran to be “held accountable for this unprecedented cyber incident.”
“We join in Prime Minister Rama’s call for Iran to be held accountable for this unprecedented cyber incident,” the U.S. National Security Council stated in a tweet.
Iran has not yet formally reacted to the development but experts believe the move has been choreographed to show support for the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), an anti-Iran terrorist group based in Albania that has carried out numerous acts of terrorism on the Iranian soil.
The group has martyred thousands of Iranians in terrorist attacks since the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, including senior political leaders, clerics and ordinary civilians.
Albania took in around 3,000 members of the MEK terrorist group in 2016 at the request of Washington, after the group was disowned by Iraq and snubbed by many European countries.
In 1986, Iran asked France to expel the group from its base in

Paris, following which it moved its base to Iraq.

The group members spent many years in Iraq, where they were hosted and armed by the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. They sided with Iraq during the 1980-88 war against Iran, and then helped the Iraqi dictator quell uprisings in various parts of the Arab country.

Albania started hosting the terrorists after the cult was shunned by the government of former Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The terrorist outfit caught the United States and its allies’ attention in the 2000s.

In 2012, it was taken out of the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. The EU has also removed the MKO from its list of terrorist organizations.

Experts have underlined the role that the U.S. played in resettling the terrorist group from Iraq to Albania. Some say Tirana accepted to accommodate the terrorists in order to secure substantial American financial support.

“Although the group gets little mainstream attention, it has actively been courted by powers hostile to Iran, primarily the United States,” analysis London-headquartered website Emerging Europe reported last year.

In 2020, Olsi Jazexhi, an Albanian historian, said that the MKO was not embraced by Albania but imposed on it by the administration of former U.S. president Barack Obama’s administration.

“Albania today is ruled by the US embassy in Tirana. The embassy vets our politicians...and it decides which politicians enter parliament or not. The hosting of MKO in Albania is not an Albanian affair, but an American-Israeli affair,” he said last year.

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Host of MKO Terrorists Cuts Ties With Iran