It is now outwardly different, but inwardly the same. This phrase best describes the two terrorist riot movements of December 2025 and the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) terrorist cult in the early years after the Islamic Revolution. From the beginning of the 1980s, the MEK openly launched armed terrorism against the Iranian people. In many respects, it bears striking similarities to the terrorist riots of winter 2025–26. These parallels are no coincidence; they point to the identical ideological roots and nature of both movements. When the root and essence are the same, the outward forms inevitably resemble each other.
The first shared characteristic of these two movements is turning their weapons of hatred and grudge against the people themselves. The terrorist Mujahedin, in 1981 and the years that followed, consistently included ordinary citizens in their lists of assassination targets and crimes. In their view, anyone including everyday people going about their normal lives and refusing to join their criminal activities — was guilty.
Ordinary citizens in the streets and bazaars who refused to cooperate with these killers became legitimate targets. This was rooted in a takfiri ideology that viewed the entire world and all human beings through the narrow, Kharijite-like lens of “with us or against us.” The same trait was clearly evident in the terrorism of December 2025.
The terrorist rioters during the street violence on January 8 and 9, 2026, targeted anyone who refused to join them for slaughter. They even went one step further than their predecessors: they attacked people who had been stirred up by enemy media and had come out into the streets. Their goal was simply to spill more blood. The savage blades of these deranged terrorists were aimed not only at security forces but also at ordinary civilians.
This modern Salafism was not limited to street clashes; it also infected social, propaganda, and media spaces. Anyone taking a position different from theirs faced character assassination. The political takfiris linked to the CIA and Mossad in both the 1980s and 2025–26 showed strong similarities not only in drawing swords against the people but also in the intensity of their violence. The brutal slaughter of security personnel in winter 2025 recalled the savagery and brutality displayed by the Mujahedin in the 1980s.
The scale and depth of violence in both movements aimed to create widespread fear in public spaces — a terror meant to multiply their otherwise feeble presence and intimidate those who opposed them, acting like a performance-enhancing drug for these groups.
Various forms of delusion — from fantasies of seizing power to illusions of mass popular support — represent another common feature. Among the Mujahedin, this delusion persisted even until 1988, directly leading to their disastrous fate in Operation Mersad. The December 2025 terrorists were no exception. Deluded rioters and terrorists, intoxicated by powerful propaganda from adversarial media outlets and even statements from the U.S. president, imagined that a surprise massacre of innocent people in the streets could topple the government of a vast country spanning 1.6 million square kilometers. The astronomical and fabricated casualty figures from the recent unrest emerged precisely from this same delusion and took root in the fevered minds of their followers.
Another shared trait is the umbilical connection of both movements to foreign enemies and external backers. Both enjoyed support from hostile foreign powers. The terrorist Mujahedin, at the height of the imposed war, sought refuge with Saddam Hussein — the very dictator who had invaded Iran’s territorial integrity — and, encouraged by the United States and Europe, took up arms against their own people and country. The terrorist rioters of winter 2025 followed exactly the same path. The U.S. president, European leaders, and officials of the notorious Zionist regime stood at the forefront of political, financial, media, and military support for the December 2025 terrorism. The world’s most despicable elements — from Zionists to Europeans and the pedophiles of Epstein Island — spared no effort in backing the December terrorists.
Both the Mujahedin terrorism of the 1980s and the terrorism of winter 2025 formed part of an anti-national mosaic and operated in line with policies aimed at disintegrating Iran. The practical outcome of both movements pointed toward the fragmentation of the country. Both were anti-national and anti-Iranian schemes. They were like bombs that, had they not been neutralized thanks to the vigilance of the people and national security forces, would have torn beloved, unified Iran apart and dragged different regions into the jaws of colonial powers.