An Autopsy of MKO August Terrorist Atrocity  Mojahedin.ws Compared with other similar perpetrated terrorist deeds, MKO’s bombings of the Iranian main ruling headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party and Prime Minister’s Office in June and August 1981 that resulted in bloody killing of high ranking and top members of the regime, including the Party’s leader, the President, Prime Minister and many ministers, have effectively reverberated throughout the Iranian society. The bombings erupted to resume a decade-long latent strategy of armed struggle, curbed by Pahlavi’s regime, because of many reasons and primarily because they had failed to secure a position in the new regime’s political structure. But, the two incidents, among many other terrorist atrocities of MKO following its declared war against the regime, reveal notable facts about the morphology of the group’s terrorist nature and its manipulation of terrorism that draw attentions to the group among other notorious terrorist groups and dangerous cults. A study of some aspects of the two terrorist acts will give much more details on the group’s disputed ethical vision in manipulation of

means in its claimed political struggle. What are notable about these two terrorist deeds to be discussed can be outlined as: 

1.  Exploiting infiltrated agents2.  The fate of the perpetrators 3.  Deferring to accept the responsibility4.  The extent of the employed violence5.  The international reactions6.  The internal, public reactions     

 Advocating an unethical tactic of hypocrisy in its struggle strategy, MKO justifies any means for the accomplishment of the ends. From the very victory of the Iranian revolution, MKO’s agents infiltrated numerous key administrative organizations to conduct its own unnoticed control and to take necessary measures in case of facing any confrontation. The organization, observing many existing disagreements that made it impossible to walk on the same path with the Islamic Republic, prefigured an inevitably subsequent conflict with the regime. Thus, an infiltrated agent proved to be of great advantage in confrontation with a mighty foe. So, MKO commenced a military phase in its struggle. Despite Mojahedins claim that the military phase was imposed on the group by the regime, many members and even the leadership have reiterated that from the very first days of the victory of the revolution the organization planned for some members to penetrate ruling and key security bodies and wait for the orders to carry out. Massoud Keshmiri, the agent who blasted the Prime Minister’s office on 30 August 1981, was the devotee who was much trusted by the both sides. Saeed Shahsavandi, a MKO ex-member well acquainted with Keshmiri and with whom he had lived in the group’s safe-houses for some time, states that he was the group’s infiltrated agent much trusted by the regime: 

In 1982 the Islamic Republic established the Second Security Committee aiming to safeguard the top confidential documents and Keshmiri, through a man I will name, was recommended and it was the first step to infiltrate. … Massoud Keshmiri who had been employed in the office through the Second Security Committee was a much trusted personnel who even proposed and executed plans for the further control of the members of the National Security Council to block any infiltration. 1

 But, who was Keshmiri? As Shahsavandi gives some details on his character: 

Here is the story. Massoud Keshmiri was first a sympathizer who was later recruited as a member. Instructed by the organization’s military-security section he soon penetrated the Islamic Republic’s security bodies and was fast promoted as the country’s Secretary of the National

Security Council. He played a key role in this post and would invite the permanent members and counselors for security decision-makings. 2

 

 

Massoud Keshmiri 

Operating at the head of a serious, national organization, a post hardly anybody but the most trusted ones could be appointed, Keshmiri was an inferior under the command of Mehdi Eftekhari, a high-ranking member of the organization: 

Mehdi Eftekhari was at the head of the organization’s military-security section. He was the person in charge of the members infiltrating different organs of the regime. Only those infiltrators of high ranking could see him since he was present in none of the public meetings of the organization and even used different entrances and exits closed on ordinary insiders. At the time he was the person in command of many forces including Massoud Keshmiri. … Keshmiri was much trusted by the President, Muhammad-Ali Rajai, who even did his prayers behind him. 3

 Such a hypocritical behavior was among the instruction these members received. In fact, they were devotees of the organization and Rajavi himself and blindly submitted to whatever terrorist mission to carry out. In a letter addressed to Massoud Rajavi following the ideological revolution, Keshmiri points to a number of the government organizations he had penetrated: 

I have been active in important posts in a variety of the regime’s serious, key security organs. A number of them which I penetrated at the time were the country’s Security Council, different committees, the Guards Corps, Ministry of Education, Construction Jihad, University Jihad, Ministry of Islamic Guidance, Radio and TV Network. 4

 

Talking of the early plans and preparations for blasting the Prime Minister’s Office, Keshmiri in the same letter has stated: 

Long later, my brave brother Mehdi Eftekhari came to my house. We were much delighted to see him in so repressed atmosphere that compelled us to live in isolation. I did not know what precious present he had brought to offer. He said: ‘if the organization decides to carry out the plan [meaning blasting the Prime Minister’s Office], what is your own proposal?’ I had no better plan than suicide operation and immediately proposed it. Although the organization never consented to such a plan, I proposed it at the time. I was much exited. I had already thought of launching such an operation and considered it a priority atop of my responsibilities. 5

 There are controversies about the fate of the two agents of the blasts in the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party and Prime Minister’s Office. Despite escalated friction between the two and the leadership, as was the cause for many others to detach from the organization, they came to doubt accuracy of their bloody deeds. Giving some details on the fate of the two agents, Mohammad-Reza Kolahi and Massoud Keshmiri, as well as Mehdi Eftekhari, Sahsavandi has stated: 

Some here and there say that Massoud Keshmiri along with Muhammad-Reza Kolahi, who blasted the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, is an outcast living incognito in isolation. I know that is true about Muhammad-Reza Kolahi because we were in close contact as we were colleagues in radio section for a while. But I am not certain about Keshmiri. Once I saw him while living in Turkey for a short time and he was also there living with his wife in a house just behind the Mosque of the King Muhhamad Fatih. We would see each other as we were neighbors but of course we hardly talked about the past as it was not organizationally permitted. Nothing is clearly known about Massoud Keshmiri before he blasted Prime Minister’s Office and information about him are those recorded in different organs where he used to work. 6

 Although definitions of terrorism vary widely and are usually inadequate, the U.S. Department of State’ definition of terrorism suffices to prove MKO’s shocking, and brutal violence against the targets exceed the basic norms of a terrorist group.  As defined by the State Department, terrorism is "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience". The extent of violence utilized by MKO, as a result of the amount of the detonated explosives, in bombing the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party and Prime Minister’s Office in June and August 1981calls the operation by MKO into question that was it really

necessary to use so much violence and whom were the audience the group intended to influence.  Compared with other similar terrorist atrocities of the contemporary history, MKO’s use of anarchism is blind and hysteric even if we consider the group as idealistic terrorist fighters that struggled for a radical cause and political ideology that advocates anarchism. Of course, not all details of the bombings were disclosed to the public but the same very details reported heightened the already upsurged public despise. Explaining the consequent of unneeded fury of MKO, an ex-member active at the time of bombing recounts: 

The blast in Prime Minister’s Office with the consequent death of the President Rajai and his Prime Minister Bahonar was so devastating that their corpses were unrecognizable. They had gathered some scattered flesh but could hardly say to whome they belonged. The teeth helped to identify them. Even Massoud Keshmiri, a member of the National Security Council and the agent of bombing, who had escaped the scene before the blast, was believed to be among the perished. Keshmiri leaves the office immediately after he places the briefcase containing the bomb next to Rajai and joins the group’s headquarters. The wreck after the explosion and the consequent conflagration made it impossible to identify the bodies. 7

 The reported testimonies by eyewitnesses precisely corroborate the above given accounts: 

I saw the corpses laid in the hall. Totally burned. Rajai and Bahonar could be identified only by their teeth. Nothing further could help. There was some flesh in a bag they said belonged to the meeting’s secretary, Massoud Keshmiri. 8

 The impact of MKO’s brutality on the public and the political climate was so great that the group did not throw the caution into the wind to accept the responsibility of the operation. However, the group indirectly and in spoken statements of the leaders has accepted the responsibility. But there is one instance in specific published by MKO putting the blame on them. In an article published in Mojahed No. 219, three years after the incident, in reaction to a memorial ceremony held in Iran’s Embassy in Paris, the group refers to the ceremony as the anniversary of the Iranian masses’ retaliation against the regime through the late President and Prime Minister whose death is claimed to be the regime’s coup de grace.

  

In another instance, following Massoud Rajavi’s flight to Iraq and in the meetings held between the two sides to exchange information, Rajavi tried to exhibit as a potential military group with terrorist, espionage talents. In a meeting with Gen. Habush, Rajavi explicitly admitted the responsibility for the operations: 

As you know, I was in Paris in years 1981-1986. In those years we were not so challenged and nobody called us terrorists. Although the White House and the Elysee Palace knew, we had contacts with the Elysee Palace, who had done operation against the Islamic Republic Party and Prime Minister’s Office in Iran, and they knew well, still they did not call us terrorists. 9

 And he was telling the truth because the group’s Western supporters knew well who had conducted the bloody operations. However, none of them took any immediate position. As disclosed later in the US State Department’s Report on the group in 1992, the responsibility of the two operations is unquestionably directed at MKO: 

The Mojahedin initiated a wave of bombings and assassinations against the Khomeini regime that reverberates today. The most spectacular attack occurred June 28, 1981, when two bombs tipped apart the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party (IRP, the party of the clerics), killing 74 members of the regime's top leadership, including the URP's leader, Ayatollah Beheshti,(14) ministers, and 27 Majles deputies. On August 30, the Mojahedin reportedly bombed a meeting of the regime's National Security Council, killing the new president, Ali Raja'i, and his new Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar. 10

 

References:  

1.            Saeed Shahsavandi’s interview with the Voice of Iran; sessions 88 & 89.

2.            Ibid.

3.            Massoud Keshmiri’s letter addressed to Massoud Rajavi; Mojahed No. 250.

4.            Ibid.

5.            Saeed Shahsavandi’s interview with the Voice of Iran; sessions 88 & 89.

6. ibid 7.         Saeed Shahsavandi’s interview with the Voice of Iran; session 89.

8.         Keyhan Daily, August 31, 1981.

9.         For the judgment of the history; secret documents of Rajavi’s deal with Saddam.

10.          The State Department’s Report on MKO, 1992.