Association for Defending Victims of Terrorism – Canada will now house a group recognized as terrorist and known for conducting terror acts.
The heads of the Iranian terrorist organization, Mujahedin-e-Khalk (MKO) are preparing to transfer their headquarters to Canada from Albania after the country’s authority raided their headquarters back in June, Iranian media reported on Saturday.
The Albanian police in late June raided the country’s MKO base to which its top brass was relocated from its base in Iraq, due to its violation of the US-mediated agreement allowing for their resettling in the country.
Originally, the deal was aimed at hosting a couple of thousand individuals disdain for which was growing after the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq; however, the organization members took to using their presence in the country as a base of operations for political activities, including carrying out cyberattacks and mass online harassment of opponents.
The MKO was violent in resisting the Albanian raid, resulting in the death of at least one person and the injury of dozens more, prompting concerns that the group has grown into a “state within a state” in the country that has been granting them humanitarian asylum for years.
The Albanian Ministry of the Interior announced that the raid, carried out by the police in the Ashraf 3 camp, which houses Iranian anti-revolution members who belong to MKO, “was carried out in accordance with the law and an order issued by the Anti-Terrorism Court.”
The terrorist group’s leadership reached the decision in response to the Albanian government’s actions, backed by their specialized anti-terrorism court, to constrain the terrorist organization. This move is prompted by the uncovering of incriminating documents within the confines of Ashraf 3 headquarters, a security source told the Iranian Tasnim News Agency.
When the MKO was unsuccessful in securing the approval of the French government to accommodate a portion of their members, they initiated efforts to influence the Canadian government through their lobbying channels.
The preliminary phase will see all MKO members possessing Canadian residency or temporary passports being transferred from Albania to Canada.
The resolution, sources told the Iranian news agency, comes from the terror group drawing parallels between the situation in Albania and their previous circumstances in Iraq.
