The washington Times:

On a recent business trip to Albania, I was invited to visit the new camp of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, or the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), still being built about 45 minutes outside of Tirana, on the way to the Albanian coast. I accepted the invitation, although I must admit, I had no idea what to expect upon reaching the sprawling facility which is the new home for approximately 3,200 of the Iranian resistance movement’s personnel, after being forced out of Iraq by violence from the Iranian-backed government.

I want to write more about the group and its agenda in the near future, but today I just want to explore what I found at ‘Ashraf 3’, which is the name the MEK has given the new camp, after the first Ashraf on the Iraqi border, where the group launched raids into Iran almost two decades ago.

With the Trump administration pulling out of the so-called Iran deal, the MEK has been given new hope in its push for regime change in the Islamic Republic of Iran. With the new sanctions biting, in combination with the consequences of the corrupt regime’s incompetent management, civil unrest is rampant across the country. The MEK sees a real chance to force regime change from inside Iran, without needing the use of expensive and already overextended American military force.

With the eventual fall of the mullahs, the MEK wants to finally install a democracy. It was against this backdrop that I visited Ashraf 3 in Albania.

The camp has been quite controversial, primarily due to the regime’s view of the MEK as an existential threat. 

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