US Officials: Israel Works With Terror Group to Kill Iranian Scientists

The Mujahedeen e-Khalq is being trained, armed, and funded by Israel to carry out terrorist attacks on Iran

Israel has financed, trained, and armed Iranian dissident groups in order to carry out terrorist attacks on Iranian soil, according to top U.S. officials.

The group, Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), is designated as a terrorist group by the United States and is accused of carrying out terrorist attacks in the past, including on American citizens. With the help of Israel, MEK has carried out five assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration knows of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement. However, there has been a big money push by many influential people in Washington to get MEK removed from the State Department’s terrorist list, presumably to make them eligible for U.S. funding.

The Iranians have made these allegations of Israeli terrorist attacks carried out by MEK for quite a while, but only now does it have confirmation from U.S. officials. Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a recent interview with NBC News claimed they knew Israel was funding MEK, sharing intelligence, and training them inside Israel in the use of motorcycles and bombs.

The Iranians say much of their intelligence on this matter has come from interrogations with an MEK member that carried out one of the assassination attempts. The MEK has denied these allegations, issuing a statement calling them “absolutely false.”

Even if its true, as U.S. officials insist, that Washington has no involvement in these terrorist attacks, they do support Israel through unmatched economic aid, arms sales, and diplomatic support. As Larijani recently told NBC News, if America, Israel’s closest ally, is aware of this terrorism, “the United States has an obligation…to push Israel not to do it” and “to pursue it, like pursuing us, at the United Nations with different resolutions.”

Author: John Glaser

John Glaser writes for Antiwar.com.