President Bujar Nishani and Prime Minister Edi Rama
Situated on the east of Europe, Albania applied for membership of the
European Union in 2009. As the poorest country in Europe and designated
the most corrupt, there is a lot of work to be done before this country
of 3 million people is accepted into the Union. A recent visit by US
Secretary of State John Kerry does indicate that this work is
well underway.
But Albania's efforts to reform and strengthen its political, security,
judicial and civic institutions after years of dictatorship, could be
drastically undermined if the country ignores or underestimates the
threat posed by the arrival of the Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) from Iraq.
Albania is the target location for the transfer of the notorious
terrorist organization Mojahedin Khalq into Europe. Currently based in
Iraq, the MEK is now being transferred to Albania under a
deal struck with America in 2013.
Since the 1980s the MEK were paid and trained in terrorism by Saddam
Hussein to effect regime change in Iran. After his ouster in 2003 the
MEK aligned itself variously with the US army - during Senator Kerry's
visit to Albania, the MEK was
described as
"a group that has supported the US in military operations in the Middle
East and in its fight against terrorism" - as well as former Saddamists
headed by Ezzat Ibrahim and more recently Al Qaida insurgents and Daesh
in Iraq. Each successive government of the newly sovereign Iraq tried
repeatedly to evict the group from their country, but the MEK leader
Massoud Rajavi - himself a fugitive from justice - ordered his followers
to put up violent resistance.
Even if they would agree to go willingly, the United Nations refugee
agency has struggled to find third countries to take them in. It seems
that, although Western countries have benefitted openly from the MEK's
sometimes violent anti-Iran activities, and found the group particularly
useful as a thorn in Iran's side through the period of nuclear
negotiations, the MEK is deemed too dirty for them to willingly host any
of them even as refugees.
In an attempt to encourage other countries to take some of the MEK,
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton persuaded the then Albanian
Prime Minister Sali Berisha in 2013 to take just over 200 MEK members on
humanitarian grounds. That process got underway, but in 2016 Albania is
now expected to take up to 3,000 MEK after the President of Romania,
Traian Basescu,
refused to take them in 2014.
This agreement has attracted surprisingly little attention from
either inside Albania or even from a world media sensitive to terrorism
and organized crime. The reason is partly because the transfers are
taking place in small groups of around twenty at a time in a piecemeal
fashion as the UNHCR is forced to defer to Massoud Rajavi's demands in
order to circumvent threats of violence. Rajavi hand-picks the members
he allows to be transferred, many using false identities. He ensures
that each group of ordinary MEK members is accompanied by minders and
enforcers to keep them under control and prevent them breaking loose. In
order to accomplish their mandate to remove the MEK from Iraq, UN
officials have had to accede to transferring the refugees under such
conditions even though it reinforces the concept that the members belong
to the MEK in conditions of modern slavery.
Once they arrive in Albania, the MEK leadership takes charge of the transferees. Although the US made
a donation of $20 million
to the UN refugee agency to help resettle the MEK, and according to a
State Department official the US has provided the Albanian government
with "security and economic development assistance, to help the country
build up its physical capacity to house the refugees", none of this
benefits the individual refugees. In Tirana the MEK has purchased an
abandoned university campus into which it has corralled the new arrivals
and recreated the conditions of
isolation and cultic control which
have always prevailed for the membership. What started out as a
humanitarian gesture has turned into the mass relocation of a terrorist
group to Europe. The MEK has created a de facto enclave in Albania which
is outside the law, just as they did in Iraq.
This has put the refugees out of the reach of the Albanian
authorities and because they are not free to mingle with Albania's
citizenry, the influx of over a thousand trained terrorists has cleverly
avoided detection and therefore controversy.
However, even though it appears that the MEK are somehow quietly contained, the citizens of Albania are
entitled to ask
whether the new refugees pose any actual threat to their civic life, to
their security and to their ambitions to accede to membership of the
European Union.
To answer this, we must ask why the Iraqi government is so desperate
to expel them and why other Western countries are so extremely reluctant
to accept them.
As a violent criminal organization, the MEK thrives where the rule of
law is weak - in countries like Iraq and Albania which are emerging
from past turmoil and troubles. In such conditions the MEK can be
dangerous through criminal activity and violence.
As
expert propagandists
and manipulative persuaders, the MEK leaders have no problem making
connections with and bribing government officials, power brokers and
media types - let's be clear, the MEK has always been well financed.
Former MEK have also reported that the MEK leaders are already
vigorously pursuing links with Albania's mafia-like gangs. The MEK will
work with these gangs for mutual benefit as they did with Saddam
Hussein's regime. In the long run, if the MEK organization does become
established Albania - with the quiet collusion of political circles who
benefit from the cult's track record of terrorism - they will be better
placed to do from Tirana what they can't do from Paris.
The CIA characterizes Albanian corruption
as a 'transnational' problem involving drugs, money laundering and
illegal aliens. In this sense it is the very location of the country
which makes it attractive to international criminal organizations and
thereby creates huge problems for law enforcement agencies. Albania
essentially acts as a gateway into Europe from the rest of the world.
Now, while the various routes to Turkey, Syria and Iraq are under
stringent scrutiny, terrorist commanders from any mercenary group can
slip beneath the radar and seek training and logistical support in
Tirana. What better location to establish a
clandestine terrorist training camp than in Albania? It is in Europe, but not in the EU and therefore not so open to scrutiny by the international community.
With the changed political mood following the nuclear deal between
Iran and the P5+1, the MEK is looking for new friends and benefactors.
The group has already aligned itself with the
Syrian Free Army and has offered to
help the Saudis fight against
the Shias in Yemen. The MEK has over forty years of experience in
terrorist activities. The real danger posed by this group is not only
that they can re-arm themselves in Albania, but they can invite other
groups in for training.
The worry is that the MEK has branched out and is open to do business with any terrorist group.
It is impossible to ignore the fact that MEK members are radicalized
to the core. They are not ordinary refugees. Enough of them have been
trained in Iraq by the former Saddam regime for terrorist activities as
well as forgery, intelligence, military operations and even torture
methods, to make them extremely dangerous. Above all, the nature of the
MEK leadership style is cultic. This means the followers are not able to
resist the orders of the leaders even if they wanted out. So there is a
danger they will be used for a variety of criminal activities without
their real consent. There are already examples of people trafficked by
the MEK from Albania to Western Europe and used for money laundry
activities in Germany.
However, the refugees could also be described as extremely
vulnerable. Another reason they have not attracted attention is that the
MEK can easily be dismissed as a defunct fighting force; the average
age of its fighters is sixty years old and many of them are ailing with
mental and physical disease after years of punishing training in the
Iraqi deserts. But while this is true of the majority, there are still
many among them who are expert terrorist recruiters and trainers, people
who know how to train others for suicide missions; strangely
transferrable skills in today's world of global terrorism.
Not all the members who arrive in Albania do stay with the MEK. There
is a growing community of formers - around two hundred to date - who
have turned their back on the group and want to return to their families
and to normal life. Interestingly, it is from this pool of former
members that the US has carefully selected a quota of eighty individuals
to be given asylum in America. They have undergone rigorous interviews
to ascertain that they have completely rejected the MEK and so no longer
pose any danger. Some others have been accepted by other European
countries under the same conditions but the rest remain in Albania under
conditions of hardship.
With the stakes set very high, Albania's authorities will need to
stop this organization from covertly establishing a terrorist base in
Europe. The first step would be to remove the MEK members from the
source of their radicalization. If this doesn't happen, the problem will
simply have been moved instead of being solved.
The authorities in Tirana can ensure that all the newly arrived
refugees are treated as individuals, not as belongings of the MEK
leader. They should be given protection and helped with accommodation
and financial support as people entitled to determine their own future
paths. Experience in Iraq has already shown that once these people are
physically removed from the coercive atmosphere imposed by the MEK
leaders and reinforced by their peers, they very quickly find that their
commitment to terrorism evaporates and the de-radicalization process can begin.
De-radicalization is greatly helped when they have contact with their
families. There are numerous examples of former MEK who managed to
leave the cult and establish new and successful lives. Some now live in
various western European countries because they have family there who
have been able to help them. Some have returned to Iran - even though
Iran doesn't want them back - where they have been granted amnesty and
lead normal lives under the supervision of the UN and ICRC. Some others
now live in Iraqi Kurdistan and have transferred their family assets
there from Iran there so they can set up in business.
Once they are out of the 'pressure-cooker' of the cult their lives
can be sorted out through humanitarian organizations. As a Red Cross
official told the authors, 'As individuals, three thousand is nothing,
we sort out millions every year. But as a group, neither us nor any
other organization can deal with or help them.' It is a choice the
Albanian government cannot ignore, for to do nothing is to risk
everything.
By Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh
