Brigadier General Gholamreza Jalali, the head of Iran's Passive Defense Organization, said that fortunately, no MKO terrorist remains in Iraq “but now they are in Albania, following new plots and this time in the social media.”
Jalali made the remarks Monday in a ceremony held to commemorate martyrs of Mersad operation; an operation in which MKO suffered a heavy defeat by Iranian forces at the end of the 8-year-long imposed war on Iran.
“Many of the comments [on social media] which are full of hatred, offense, and mockery is posted by fake accounts of this group,” he highlighted.
“They are trying to negatively affect the public opinion in Iran and cause disappointment among Iranians and induce inefficiency of the Islamic Republic,” the commander added.
Leaked images showed that the US-backed Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) terror group have launched social media campaigns against the Islamic Republic. Iran's Khorasan newspaper in early July, revealed for the first time part of the organization's secretive social media influence campaign targeting Farsi, English and Arabic-speaking users on social media, PressTV reported.
Members are "briefed at the start of their workday and start their social media operations at noon. At the end of the day, feedback is reviewed and issues that have to be used to defame the Islamic Republic are examined for the next day," read the paper.
The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community. Its members fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where it enjoyed backing of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The MKO has been banned in Iran and around the world for its role in numerous terrorist activities, especially in the early years after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, taking the lives of thousands of Iranians, along with foreign nationals.
Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks since the victory of the Islamic Revolution, about 12,000 have fallen victim to MKO’s acts of terror.
Removing a decade-long ban on the MKO, the United States and its allies, however, have sought to use the group as a tool to pressure Iran over the past years.
MNA/4679032