Nationwide uprising in Iran – Statement 112

Mullahs' ploy to step up pressure on Ashraf

NCRI - In a clumsy and discredited misinformation campaign, the clerical regime’s websites and media such as Press TV, an English language TV channel, and Jahan News, a website affiliated to the regime’s Revolutionary Guards, claimed on Sunday, July 19, “With the vigilance of the intelligence and security bodies, the ominous plot to assassinate Mehdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi was foiled,” and added, “the assassins were from the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) and had entered the country from the southwestern province of Khuzestan, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf.” According to the same sources, “They were reported to have received training at the MKO-run Camp Ashraf in Iraq.” The reports added, “They were captured by the security forces before carrying out their plan and sent to jail… The main intention of the operation was to attribute the assassination of Mousavi and Karroubi to the revolutionary institutions.”

A day before, the regime’s Minister of Intelligence made the ridiculous claim that, “To assassinate Mr. Ahmadinejad, the Zionist regime (i.e., Israel) met with Monafeqin (Mojahedin) grouplet on the fringes of Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt and these meetings also took place in Paris.”

To prove its claim, the regime referred to a false report previously fabricated by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) claiming, “In the run-up to the June 12 presidential election, a number of anti-revolutionary groups had intended to carry out a similar plan by placing a bomb in the aircraft carrying [former President] Seyed Mohammad Khatami, which was foiled by the flight security forces.”

In yet another similar report released on June 20, the clerical regime claimed, “During a series of widespread intelligence operations several members of the Monafeqin grouplet who had received different types of training in Camp Ashraf in Iraq were identified and arrested. They had entered the country with the intention of carrying out terrorist operations.” The continued, “The individuals who were arrested admitted that they were guided and backed by the Monafeqin’s operations room in Britain after they received training and entered Iran.” (Official news agency IRNA, June 20).

The preposterous claims by the clerical regime are part of a discredited and wishful attempt to accomplish three objectives: 1) to conspire against candidates of the rival factions, 2) to justify the crackdown and killings inside Iran and 3) step up pressure on the residents of Camp Ashraf.

In truth, the clumsy fairy tale underscores the mullahs' paranoia over enthusiastic support expressed for the PMOI by Iranians, especially the courageous youths, on the one hand and the latter's increasing rage and hatred towards the perpetrators of the atrocities during the Iranian people's nationwide uprising on the other.

This is a transparent ploy by the Iranian regime which systematically tries to blame its own crimes on the opposition. In 1994, three Iranian priests were brutally murdered and the regime later alleged that they were assassinated by the PMOI. Although it was common knowledge at the time that the attribution was an absurd lie, in the course of factional feuding a few years later, some regime officials revealed that the MOIS had carried out those heinous murders.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
July 20, 2009