Masih Alinejad is an Iranian activist and journalist whose reports from the streets of Iran during the rebellion have been invaluable to western observers who wanted the straight scoop on what was going on.
Last July, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards tried to kidnap Alinejad from her home in Brooklyn. They were going to take her to Venezuela and then back to Iran. That plot fell apart when it was uncovered by the FBI.
The Iranians realize that Alinejad has been extraordinarily effective in advocating for the cause of the Iranian people. For that reason, they gave up on the kidnap plot and sent three Eastern European hitmen to New York to assassinate her.
Thankfully, that plot was also blown up by federal authorities, and three men were arrested.
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“Today’s indictment exposes a dangerous menace to national security – a double threat posed by a vicious transnational crime group operating from what it thought was the safe haven of a rogue nation. That rogue nation is the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said at a news conference unveiling the charges.
One of the three men had been arrested this past summer in the Brooklyn neighborhood where Alinejad lives. At the time, he was charged with possessing a firearm after police found in the back seat of his vehicle a suitcase containing a “Norinco AK-47-style assault rifle … loaded with a round in the chamber and a magazine attached, along with a separate second magazine, and a total of approximately 66 rounds of ammunition,” according to a complaint.
The DOJ said in a statement Friday that since at least July, the three men have been “tasked with carrying out” the murder of Alinejad, “who previously has been the target of plots by the government of Iran to intimidate, harass and kidnap” her.
“As recently as 2020 and 2021, Iranian intelligence officials and assets plotted to kidnap the (Alinejad) from within the United States for rendition to Iran in an effort to silence the (Alinejad’s) criticism of the regime,” the department said in a statement.
This is why the Iranian government is terrified of Ms. Alinejad:
In this historical moment when Iranians have risen up against dictatorship, let's breathe new life into the revolution with an alliance. The first women's revolution the world has ever seen will be won because we are unified. #WomanLifeFreedompic.twitter.com/GKqclaFejk
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) January 27, 2023
She calls the Iranian government “ISIS with oil.”
I just learned from 12 FBI agents that the 3 men hired by the Iranian regime to kill me on US soil have been indicted. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards have been conducting these terrorist operations for four decades.
Islamic Republic is ISIS with oil. #WomanLifeFreedom pic.twitter.com/T9Hbp0iwG3— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) January 27, 2023
The one thing about the Iranian government that makes them so dangerous is that they never — ever — give up. They have pursued targets for a decade or more. Kazem Rajavi, the spokesperson for the Mujahideen e-Khaleq (MEK), was the first revolutionary ambassador to the United Nations before resigning in 1980 and joining the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). They caught up with him in April 1990 and gunned him down.
The trail of blood leads from Tehran to Europe, to the United States, and to Asia. Until the world gets serious about regime change in Iran, these gangsters will continue to murder people with impunity.
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