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Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 1672
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Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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Here we go again, there are patriotic Iranian Kurds that are fighting the Taazi occupiers of Iran, and what does Obama do? blacklists them to please the mullahs.
http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/obama_iran_kurdish_group/2009/02/09/179886.html
Ken Timmerman
Obama Blacklists Kurdish Group In Gesture to Tehran
Monday, February 9, 2009 1:04 AM
By: Kenneth R. Timmerman
The Treasury Department has blacklisted an Iranian Kurdish opposition group based in northern Iraq, a move that was greeted enthusiastically in Iran�s state-run media as part of a initiative by the Obama administration to forge better U.S.-Iranian relations.
The Party of Free Life of Iranian Kurdistan, known by its Kurdish acronym, PJAK, was created in 2004 and has never engaged in international terrorism or in military activity outside of Iran.
But its guerilla fighters have clashed frequently with Iranian Revolutionary Guards units in Iranian Kurdish towns and villages, making it a primary target of the Iranian regime.
In November, for example, the provincial police commander in Iran�s West Azerbaijan province, Brigadier Hassan Karami, told the state-owned Iran Press TV that his troops had clashed with PJAK units 65 times since March, killing 13 PJAK fighters and wounding 24 others.
Iran has complained frequently about PJAK�s activities, and has launched repeated artillery attacks and even airstrikes against PJAK bases in the Qandil mountains of northern Iraq. But until now, Iran�s efforts to get PJAK branded as a terrorist organization � both in Europe and the United States � have failed.
�With today�s action, we are exposing PJAK�s terrorist ties to the KGK and supporting Turkey�s efforts to protect its citizens from attack,� said the Treasury Department news release announcing the designation.
The Treasury statement claimed that PJAK was �controlled by the terrorist group Kongra-Gel (KGK, aka the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK).�
But the KGK is a pan-Kurdish political Congress, separate from PJAK and from the PKK, which officially dissolved itself in 2000, said Nilufer Kok, a KGK vice-president.
PJAK officials say that, although PJAK takes part in the sessions of the Kongra-Gel, it is controlled by its own party Congress that convenes in northern Iraq, not by the KGK.
The Treasury Department statement claims that the �KGK formally institutionalized PJAK in 2004 and selected five KGK members to serve as PJAK leaders, including Hajji Ahmadi, a KGK affiliate who became PJAK�s General Secretary.�
In interviews with Newsmax in Washington, D.C., and in Europe, Rahman Haji Ahmadi repeatedly has denied any affiliation with the PKK. �We are an Iranian party, fighting the Iranian regime. We have nothing to do with Turkey,� he said.
�But the Iranians know they can�t make trouble for us directly because they have bad relations with the U.S. and Europe. So they go through Turkey. It�s the Iranians who are saying that PJAK and the PKK are the same.�
The Turkish government has been pressuring the United States to put PJAK on the terrorism list for the past eighteen months, and welcomed last week�s move by the Treasury Department.
"PJAK is a terrorist organization, and we see the US putting it on its terror list as a positive development," Brig. Gen. Metin G�rak, head of the General Staff's communications department, told reporters in Ankara Thursday.
The Turkish foreign ministry also issued a congratulatory statement praising the U.S. move.
�PJAK and PKK are not two separate organizations,� a Turkish official told Newsmax. �They are one and the same. That�s just a fact.� But when pressed, the official could not provide any evidence of cooperation between PJAK and PKK, and acknowledged that the two groups were based in different parts of the Qandil mountain range of northern Iraq.
Independent observers traveling to the region have found no PKK presence at PJAK bases, and no political, military or strategic cooperation between the two groups.
In mid-2007, Iran and Turkey established a joint operational headquarters in Ourmieh, Turkey, to plan combined military operations against PKK and PJAK bases in northern Iraq. The Iranian and Turkish military began shelling Kurdish camps inside Iraq that spring.
Iran is a self-avowed U.S. enemy, while Turkey is a U.S. ally and founding member of NATO.
In November 2007, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to Washington, seeking a green-light from President George W. Bush to launch a ground invasion against PKK bases in northern Iraq. While the U.S. turned down his request at the time, Turkish troops moved into northern Iraq several months later.
Since that time, the United States and Turkey have exchanged intelligence information on terrorism �on a real time basis,� knowledgeable sources tell Newsmax.
According to an August 29, 2008, report from the Congressional Research Service, the Bush administration �has been wary of Turkey�s warming of relations with Iran.�
When Turkey announced it was planning to finalize a deal to invest in Iran�s South Pars natural gas field during Ahmadinejad�s official visit to Ankara last August, the State Department issued a sharp warning.
Such a deal �would send the wrong message at a time when the Iranian regime has repeatedly failed to comply with its U.N. Security Council and IAEA obligations,� a State Department official said. �This is not a time to do business with Iran. It is a time for the international community, including our ally Turkey, to begin considering additional measures to pressure Iran.�
PJAK leaders told Newsmax during a reporting tour of rebel bases in northern Iraq in October 2007 that their fighters frequently engage Iranian Revolutionary Guards troops inside Iran�s Kurdish region, primarily in response to Rev. Guards attacks on Kurdish civilians or PJAK political workers.
In the July 2005, for example, a Kurdish human rights activist was brutally murdered by regime agents and his body dragged through the streets of the Iranian Kurdish town of Mahabad behind a jeep.
When local Kurds protested massively and the regime cracked down, killing dozens of Kurds and arresting hundreds more, PJAK guerillas attacked Revolutionary Guards troops in 10 different places.
The PJAK counterstrikes were meant as a warning to the regime that such actions �would no longer go unpunished,� a PJAK guerilla said.
[Editor's Note: Read Ken Timmerman�s eyewitness reporting from a PJAK guerrilla base in northern Iraq - Go Here Now]
PJAK officials tell Newsmax they believe the Treasury Department action was primarily motivated by a desire to win Iranian cooperation in reducing terrorism inside Iraq.
�When the U.S. signed the Status of Forces agreement with the Maliki government, they were hoping to get Iran to reduce its support of Ansar al Islam and other terrorist organizations in Iraq,� said Shamal Bishir, a PJAK representative who spoke to Newsmax on Monday by telephone from Europe. �In exchange, the United States allowed Iran to have greater influence in the Kurdish areas.�
Bishir said the group intended to launch legal action against the Treasury Department to get the designation removed.
Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East analyst at the Congressional Research Service, told Newsmax that the Treasury Designation does not mean the group has been put on the State Department�s list of Foreign Terrorist organizations.
�The designation under Executive Order 13224 is not as wide-ranging or as politically significant as an FTO designation,� he said. �There are lots of entities designated under 13224 that never wind up on the FTO list.�
Under the Executive Order, the U.S. will freeze the group�s assets and prohibit American citizens from doing business with it, the Treasury Department statement said.
PJAK leader Rahman Haji Ahmadi warned that if Turkey is successful in dislodging PJAK fighters from Iraq�s border with Iran, this could have dire consequences for Iraq�s security.
�Turkey wants to control the Qandil mountains with Iran. When they do, they will open the border and allow al Qaeda and Ansar al Isslam fighters to come in. And this will make Erbil [the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan] like Fallujah used to be,� he told Newsmax.
U.S. military commanders have credited PJAK with protecting Iraq�s border with Iran from terrorist infiltration, but have shied short of any cooperation with the group.
Roughly one-third of PJAK guerilla fighters are women. Haji Ahmadi called this part of his project to reduce the influence of the Islamists ruling Iran.
�When you give a gun to a woman, she doesn�t have to wear hijab. She can sit down with a man on an equal basis. This is a big blow to the Islamists,� he said.
A State Department official noted that while PJAK was not yet on its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, �we condemn the group�s violent activities.�
Neither the Treasury Department or the White House responded to requests for comment. |
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Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 1672
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Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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Listen to this Kordish warrier & patriotic Iranian, who is part of the Groohe Ogab (Eagles of Iran). He mentions Jebhe Meli, MKO, Hezebe Tudeh, Chereek Khalg and traitos to Iran & Iranians, his views on Islam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kb3U9kjkqU&feature=email |
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Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 1672
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Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2009 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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Obama Administration's helping hand to iri regime, and against Iranian Kords.
http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/iran_pjak/2009/11/24/290260.html
U.S. Acting in Iran’s (IRI)Interest, Opposition Leader Says
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 9:00 AM
By: Kenneth R. Timmerman Article Font Size
The leader of the outlawed Free Life Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PJAK) has accused the Obama administration of thwarting negotiations among Iranian pro-democracy groups that were on the verge of creating a united opposition front that could have led to the collapse of the Islamic regime during this summer’s post-election turmoil.
That leader, Rahman Haj Ahmadi, contends that Iran was able to suppress the pro-democracy movement well before this summer’s protests because they lacked a united leadership and a strategic nerve center.
In an exclusive interview, Ahmadi told Newsmax that the decision by the Treasury Department to designate his party as an international terrorist organization on Feb. 4, 2009 "directly benefited the Iranian regime."
Efforts by PJAK and others to forge a common front with a wide variety of Iranian pro-democracy groups over the past year came to an abrupt halt as a result of the U.S. action in February. “We were very close to success in bringing these groups together,” Ahmadi said. But the Treasury action “made the other groups afraid to work with us, for fear of U.S. government reprisals.”
The Treasury Department explained its actions by labeling PJAK “a splinter group” of the PKK, a Kurdish organization that has been fighting for Kurdish rights in Turkey for the past 25 years. Tens of thousands have died on both sides over that time.
Both the Iranian and the Turkish governments welcomed the Treasury order to freeze PJAK assets in the United States. The Treasury Department order also prohibits U.S. persons from conducting any financial transactions with the group. But lawyers for PJAK say that the Treasury Department violated U.S. law by making the designation without any prior consultation with PJAK or allowing the group to counter the allegations against it.
The Obama administration failed to take into consideration a recent German court decision that rejected a similar effort by the German government to designate PJAK as a terrorist organization. The German court “found no factual basis for this terrorism determination,” PJAK counsel Morton Sklar wrote to theTreasury in March.
Sklar is a well-known human rights lawyer who chaired the Helsinki Watch Committee in the late 1970s to monitor human rights abuses behind the Iron Curtain, at a time when most human rights organizations were turning a blind eye to Soviet abuses.
In his interview with Newsmax, Ahmadi extended a hand to other Iranian opposition groups to coordinate their efforts against the Iranian regime.
“We as Kurds cannot overthrow the regime by ourselves. Neither can the Persians, or the Azeris, or the Balouch. If we want to get rid of this regime, we must work together. We must unite. The only reason this regime has stayed in power for 30 years is that they have managed to sow hatred among Iran’s minorities and false rivalries among Iranian political parties. It is time for that to end.”
PJAK operates several camps in the Qandil mountains of northern Iraq, where it also trains activists as “self-defense” fighters. Newsmax visited the PJAK camps in October 2007 and found no evidence of a PKK presence.
Ahmadi refered to the camps as “our university,” because of the intense political, social, and economic classes PJAK activists take in addition to receiving rudimentary military training. For more, read “Kurdish Rebels: ‘We’re Not Terrorists.'”
PJAK activists insist that what differentiates them from other Kurdish groups that are based on tribal loyalties is their dedication to “changing the feudal and tribal culture” of Iranian Kurdistan.
PJAK activists played key roles in the post-election protests this summer, organizing demonstrations at Tehran University and at other universities across the country.
“We lost a lot of our people” when the regime cracked down, Ahmadi said. The Kurdish leader said that his group will continue to defend Kurdish rights in Iran and to work with other groups to promote a secular Iranian republic no matter what the Obama administration does.
“We have many common interests with the United States,” he said. “First and foremost is our stance against political Islam. Americans need to understand that Iranian nuclear weapons are not as dangerous as political Islam. This is the No. 1 danger, not just for the region, or the United States, but for the whole world.”
Ahmadi said that there was no evidence "that PJAK ever committed a single terrorist act anywhere . . . It does not exist."
Instead of designating PJAK as a terrorist group, the Iranian opposition leader said the U.S. should be concerned about the growing strategic alliance among Iran, Turkey, and Syria. “If the Iran-Turkey-Syria alliance continues, U.S. policies will fail in the region,” he warned.
Lots of governments in the region work with the United States. But in most cases, the people in those countries oppose their governments and oppose the United States, Ahmadi argued. “If the U.S. were to follow a democratization policy in the region, we could be the closest and most valuable friend of the United States. The only people in the region that is a friend to the U.S. is the Kurdish people.” |
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Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.newsmax.com/KenTimmerman/Iran-dissidents-Kurds-Iraq/2011/08/04/id/406164
Iranian Dissident Leader Claims Victory.
Iranian Dissident Leader Claims Victory, Warns US
Thursday, 04 Aug 2011 04:38 PM
By Ken Timmerman
The leader of a dissident Kurdish organization in Iran says his forces killed more than 300 Iranian Revolutionary Guards troops, including three generals and 15 decorated commanders while sustaining just 16 casualties, during two weeks of running battles along the Iran-Iraq border last month.
During an exclusive interview with Newsmax in Stockholm, Rahman Haj Ahmadi said his group, the Free Life Party of Kurdistan, commonly known as PJAK, had advance warning that Iran’s forces planned to attack its bases in the Qandil Mountains along Iraq’s northeastern border with Iran. So PJAK developed guerilla tactics to ambush the attacking forces and drive them back across the border into Iran.
“Now everyone can see how powerful PJAK has become,” Ahmadi said. “For Kurds, Qandil has become like Mecca, a sacred place. This is where we have shown our strength.”
Iranian troops attacked PJAK forward positions on the Iranian side of the mountains on July 16, inflicting heavily losses among the guerilla forces.
“We lost eight fighters in the first day of this war, and for us this was a heavy loss,” Ahmadi said.
Despite the casualties, PJAK forces drove the Iranians back.
Over the next few days, Iranian troops tried to cross the 12,000-foot Qandil Mountains several times to attack PJAK training camps inside Iraq but were driven back.
“The fighting was so close that they couldn’t use their technology against us,” Ahmadi said. “It was hand-to-hand combat.”
Iran’s biggest advantage was access to intelligence from Israeli-made Heron surveillance drones that Turkish Special Forces troops flew over the battlefield in coordination with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. “This limited our ability to move, but it didn’t matter much since most of our positions were underground,” Ahmadi told Newsmax.
Over the next 10 days, the battle moved back into Iran, where PJAK forces attacked IRGC garrisons and flying roadblocks that Iranian troops had set up to harass Kurdish villagers and press them into military service against the guerillas.
“In one attack against an IRGC roadblock, one of our female commanders single-handedly killed 15 of their troops. This is a huge shift in the Islamic world. Not only do we treat women as equals, but they are heroes,” Ahmadi said with pride.
Roughly 40 percent of all PJAK leaders and guerilla fighters are women, unlike the traditional Iranian Kurdish parties that have excluded women activists until just recently. Three of PJAK’s 16 casualties were women.
Although Iranian accounts differ dramatically from PJAK’s claims, the state-run Keyhan daily confirmed that the IRGC was taking heavy losses in its fight against the Kurdish guerillas.
On July 22, the regime acknowledged that the commanding general of the attacking force and five other senior officers had been killed during the fighting. The next day, they had a public funeral for the six officers that was broadcast on state television.
Iran also has acknowledged it was calling up veteran commanders from the 1980-1988 Iraq war in Gilan province because it had lost so many officers during the fighting.
“The heavy losses have demoralized them, so they are starting to bring fresh troops into the region,” Ahmadi said. “We are expecting another attack. They can’t back down.”
Ahmadi said there is substantial evidence that Turkey aided Iran in the recent fighting, which would violate Turkey’s status as a NATO member.
“Our people repeatedly saw Turkish tanks crossing back and forth between Turkey and Iran to help the IRGC in the battle,” he said.
The local Kurdish militia repatriated the bodies of five Turkish soldiers who had been killed in the fighting in Sardasht, far from Turkey, according to the Firat News agency.
“Turkey is using its relationship with Iran to hold America hostage,” Ahmadi said. “They are basically saying to Washington, if you weaken your support for us, we will strengthen our ties with Tehran.”
The IRGC tried to mobilize local Kurdish militia units to attack PJAK activists living near the town of Sanandaj but faced high desertion rates and started offering $1,800 bonuses to anyone who agreed to fight.
“One man in Sardasht was running back to his home to escape the recruiters,” Ahmadi said. “They shot him in the back.”
An ambulance was traveling so fast from Schoor to Urmiyeh that it drove off the road. When local villagers went to help they found the bodies of 10 Kurdish civilians the IRGC had killed. “They were being rushed to the morgue in Urmiyeh so they wouldn’t be found by the local population,” Ahmadi said.
The IRGC also used guerilla fighters from Ansar al Islam, an al-Qaida affiliate operating in the Kurdish region run by Mullah Krekar, who now lives in Norway. Videos on Kurdish YouTube channels show Ansar al Islam fighters visiting the local morgues to claim their dead.
“Iran’s goal is to drive PJAK out of Qandil and replace us with Ansar al Islam, al-Qaida, and Hezbollah,” Ahmadi said. “If Qandil falls, the Kurdish Regional Government [in Iraq] will come under Iranian control. Then Iran will control both the Shia and the Kurdish populations in Iraq.
“I fear the United States is not aware of how great a danger this is, not just for Iraq, but for U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia,” he added.
Revolutionary Guards had so many casualties in some areas of Iran that remained under PJAK control that they were afraid to return to the battlefield to reclaim them, Ahmadi said.
Large areas of Iranian Kurdistan, including the cities of Sardasht, Baneh, Piranshah, and Urmiyeh, are still closed to non-military traffic because of the large numbers of IRGC troops.
The current round of fighting essentially ended when PJAK attacked a large IRGC garrison on July 26, inflicting major casualties and breaking the momentum of the Iranian offensive.
During the past week, the Iranian regime has put out feelers to PJAK to negotiate an end to hostilities and to surrender its arms. Other Iranian Kurdish parties have negotiated separate peaces with the regime after major military clashes in the past.
Ahmadi was adamant that PJAK will not lay down its arms unless the regime agrees to its seven-point plan for transforming Iran into a democratic confederation, where the cultural and political rights of all Iranians, regardless of their ethnic background, will be respected throughout the country, without breaking Iran into separate ethnic regions or states.
“We are not just fighting for Kurds, but for the rights and the freedom of all Iranians,” Ahmadi told Newsmax. “Think of Iran as a burning seven-story building, with Kurds living on the fourth floor. How can you save your own apartment, unless you fight the fire to save the whole building?” he said.“We are hoping to free Iran from Qandil, and welcome all who want to join this fight.”
Iran continues sporadic shelling of Iraqi Kurdish villages in the border region, prompting yet another protest from the government of Baghdad to the Iranian ambassador on Wednesday. Iranian forces attempted to attack a PJAK camp inside Iraq again on Wednesday but were repulsed, local news agencies reported.
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