Wayne Madsen is an American journalist, television news commentator, online editor of Wayne Madsen Report.com, investigative journalist and author specializing intelligence and international affairs. He has written for many publications including The Village Voice, The Progressive, Counterpunch, CorpWatch, Multinational Monitor, In These Times, and The American Conservative. Madsen has been a regular contributor on RT and PressTV. He has been a frequent political and national security commentator on Fox News and has also appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and MS-NBC. Madsen has been invited to testify as a witness before the US House of Representatives, the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and a terrorism investigation judicial inquiry of the French government. What comes below is the full-text of Habilian Association’s interview with this known investigative journalist about the last situation of terrorist group Mojehedin-e-Khalq in Albania.
H: As the first question would you please explain about your acquaintance with the MeK?
W.M: In 2005, I wrote,"British special operations forces, acting in concert with the United States and Mojeheddin-e-Khalq (MEK) and Ahwazi Arab Peoples Democratic Popular Front (ADPF) terrorist forces, launched a series of bombing attacks in Iran's Khuzestan Province organized from across the border in Iraq. Struck were an Ahwaz Ministry of Housing and Urban Development building, the Office of Construction and Civil Engineering, the house of the governor of Khuzestan, an Iranian State Radio and TV office, and a shopping mall. Other bombing attempts against the Abadan refinery and the Kianpars Bridge were foiled, although attacks on oil pipelines, including the Abadan-Mashuur pipeline were frequent." After that article, an MEK affiliate wrote to me and asked for a retraction of my article. I refused since it was based on information received from very reliable sources in the Middle East.
H: What features in this group made you interested to study about it?
W.M: The MEK became part of the neo-conservative network calling for US intervention in Iran after the disastrous US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The MEK worked closely with leading pro-Israel neo-cons in the aftermath of the Iraq debacle. These include Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Daniel Pipes, Republican Sen. Sam Brownback (now Donald Trump's special envoy for "religious liberty"), and the late Democratic Representative Tom Lantos. The MEK also has other strong bi-partisan political support in the US from people like Rudolph Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, and John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser.
H: How do you describe the MEK after years of research about the group?
W.M: The MEK is a personality cult beholden to the Rajavis that conducts terrorist attacks on Iran and Shi'as in Iraq on behalf of third parties, including the U.S., Israel, and the Saudis. The Rajavis are cult leaders in the same manner of the heads of the Church of Scientology, the Unification Church (the "Moonies"), and the personality cult now developing Trump. Cults are neither democratic or libertarian because members must give total loyalty to the cult leaders. In the case of MEK, it is the Rajavis.
H: According to some reports, there have been some Interactions between the MeK and the ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria. Do you agree with it? What are the groups’ common points for cooperation?
W.M: The cooperation between MEK and ISIS was primarily due to their joint opposition to Iran and the governments in Baghdad and Damascus. This was a "marriage of convenience" but similar in light of the fact that ISIS is a personality cult surrounding al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed "caliph." He -- if he is still alive -- and the Rajavis are nothing more than con artists and grifters who prey on the weaknesses, fears, and biases of others. Among such people is where cult leaders normally find their followers.
H: Would you please explain about the political context in Albania that facilitated the transfer of MeK members to this country?
W.M: Albania is the country of choice for the MEK because it has previously supported US and NATO efforts to arm and support neighboring terrorist groups like the Kosovo Liberation Army and the National Liberation Army of Macedonia, both Albanian groups.
H: You have said that the US has pressured Albanian government to allow a number of ISIS terrorists to enter that country and join their MEK allies. Would you please explain it?
W.M: The Balkans has served for some time as a base for Al Qaeda and now, ISIS. Osama bin Laden lived in Bosnia for some time in the late 1990s and he even traveled on a Bosnia-Herzegovina passport issued by the Bosnian embassy in Vienna. This intelligence was passed to me by a NATO country responsible for peacekeeping in Bosnia. That country is Norway. In the wake of Al Qaeda, now the MEK in a country where there are also elements of the Kosovo Liberation Army, a terrorist group supported by the US and NATO, ISIS finds a veritable terrorist paradise where such groups can sustain themselves the war all criminal syndicates there do -- cigarette smuggling, prostitution, human organ harvesting, car theft, and sex trafficking. This information is known to EUROPOL and INTERPOL, as well as the FBI.
Albania served the CIA as a recruitment center for Albanians and others to join takfiri groups in Syria and Iraq. Under John Brennan, the CIA's Milan Station was a focal point for recruiting Albanian mafiosi to don jihadist clothing and travel to Syria to join ISIS and Al Qaeda units fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad. Many of the Albanian veterans of the Syrian campaign returned to the Balkans and stood ready to implement the CIA's "Greater Albania" operation. All that was needed was a personal order from Brennan. That order was delivered on December 7, 2016 to Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, Albanian Defense Minister Mimi Kodheli, and Albanian National Police chief Haki Cato. They readily complied.
H: What are US and NATO goals in transferring MeK and ISIL members to Albania?
W.M: The MEK, which was heavily weaponized by the US and NATO in Iraq, had to be taken out of the Middle East. Albania was chosen because it has a large Muslim population. MEK soldiers and trained terrorists can be expected to stir up problems in the Balkans, especially in Serbia's Sanjak region, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Bulgaria.