page_title: People's Mujahedin of Iran
section_title: Ties to foreign and non-state actors
hierarchical_section_title: People's Mujahedin of Iran / Ties to foreign and non-state actors
caption_attribution_description: Memorandum to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (TsK KPSS) from F. Olfat, member of the Politburo of the People's Mujahedin of Iran, requesting that the TsK KPSS lend any amount of money (up to US$300,000,000) to the organization. It was sent to the Soviet Embassy in Bulgaria to be delivered in ciphered form by the Committee for State Security (KGB).
context_page_description: The People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran, or the Mujahedin-e Khalq, is an Iranian political-militant organization. It advocates overthrowing the Islamic Republic of Iran leadership and installing its own government. Its revolutionary interpretation of Islam contrasts with the conservative Islam of the traditional clergy as well as the populist Islamism developed by Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1970s. It is also considered the Islamic Republic of Iran's biggest and most active political opposition group.
  MEK was founded on 5 September 1965 by leftist Iranian students affiliated with the Freedom Movement of Iran to oppose the U.S.-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The organization engaged in armed conflict with the Pahlavi dynasty in the 1970s and contributed to the overthrow of the Shah during the Iranian Revolution. It subsequently pursued the establishment of a democracy in Iran, particularly gaining support from Iran's middle class intelligentsia. After the fall of Pahlavi, the MEK refused to take part in the constitutional referendum of the new government, which led to Khomeini preventing Massoud Rajavi and other MEK members from running for office in the new government.
context_section_description: MEK was among the opposition groups receiving supports from Gulf nations such as Saudi Arabia.
  On 7 January 1986, the MEK leaders sent a twelve-page letter to the "comrades" of Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, asking for temporary asylum and a loan of $300 million to continue their "revolutionary anti-imperialist" actions. It is not clear how the Soviets responded, according to Milani. Israel's foreign intelligence agency Mossad maintains connections with the MEK, dating back to the 1990s. 
  Hyeran Jo, associate professor of Texas A&M University wrote in 2015 that the MEK is supported by the United States. According to Spiegel Online security experts say that U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israel provide the group with financial support, though there is no proof for this supposition and MEK denies this.
  According to Ervand Abrahamian, while dealing with anti-regime clergy in 1974, the MEK became close with secular Left groups in and outside Iran. These included the confederation of Iranian Students, The People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, and the People's Front for the Liberation of Oman, among others. The MEK sent five trained members into South Yemen to fight in the Dhofar Rebellion against Omani and Iranian forces.
  In April 2012, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh reported that the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command had trained MEK operatives at a secret site in Nevada from 2005 to 2009. According to Hersh, MEK members were trained in intercepting communications, cryptography, weaponry and small unit tactics at the Nevada site up until President Barack Obama took office in 2009.
caption: letter in Persian requesting that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union lend any amount of money (up to US$300,000,000) to the Mujahedin Organization and requesting that the supporters of the Mujahedin Organization be allowed to cross the Soviet-Iranian border and be granted a temporary asylum; memorandum to the TsK KPSS from Olfat[400]
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