The Washington-based Iran Policy Committee (IPC) said that the panel was a disinformation ploy mounted by the new president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is mobilizing Iranian intelligence services in a world-wide series of probes against the United States.
“Just as Ahmadinejad’s intelligence activities came before insurgent attacks in Iraq, so Iranian intelligence actions in the United States may signal terrorist attacks on the American homeland”, the groups executive director, Clare Lopez, warned.
The IPC introduced Karim Haqi (a.k.a. Karim Haggi Moni) as one such veteran MOIS agent, who was heading to the U.S. capital from the Netherlands.
Separately, the Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) issued a statement condemning the MOIS ploy, which it said was organised by intelligence agents posing as former members and officials of the opposition group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK). The NCRI said that Haqi had been used by the regime for espionage and terrorist schemes as well as disseminating false information against the Iranian opposition in the past 10 years.
Haqi is supported and financed by the MOIS directly from Tehran and is in contact with other MOIS agents in Europe. In order to keep these contacts secret, he met with MOIS officials in East Asia, including Singapore, it said, adding that Haqi had on several occasions been interrogated and warned by Dutch police for his contacts and collaboration as well as receiving money from the MOIS.
The IPC introduced two other MOIS agents taking part in Mondays conference as Amir-Hossein Kord Rostami and Mahrokh (Parvin) Haji, both from Canada. Haji, according to the group, maintains active links with a network of agents in Canada and Europe. The Pars-Iran association, which is the organizer of the October 24, 2005 press conference in Washington, is a front for Iranian intelligence in Canada.
Rostami, another Iranian intelligence agent in Ottawa, was officially a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IGRC) near the Caspian Sea since 1979, it said.
In the summer of 1981, Rostami took part in search-and-arrest operations against the MeK and their supporters in the town of Gorgan, northern Iran, the NCRI said, adding that in 1986, the MOIS assigned him to infiltrate the ranks of the MeK, though his identity was soon discovered leading to his expulsion. Rostami was also in charge of the Iranian embassy’s Fatemeh Cultural Centre library in Canada for some time.
In its statement, the NCRI urged U.S. authorities not to allow the Godfather of terrorism and the most active state sponsor of terrorism to turn U.S. territory into a centre for its activities against Iranian exiles and dissidents.
The IPC said that the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services should block entry of additional Iranian agents onto U.S. soil, and called on the Department of State to revoke visas and expel the three Iranian intelligence agents – Karim Haqi, Mahrukh (Parvin) Haji, and Amir-Hossein Kord Rostami.
It also suggested that the FBI assign additional agents to monitor activities of Iran’s intelligence officials on American soil, with a view towards eliminating their presence.
Bruce McColm, co-Chair of the IPC stated, “As part of a global campaign, Ahmadinejad accelerated attacks against Iranian dissidents abroad. Traditionally, intelligence operations by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security preceded assassination attempts by its agents.
