Introduction

A Terrorist Group with Different Faces

One of the main threats to the international community emanates today from terrorist–cult organisations. Having enjoyed a cult background, some of these terrorist groups have achieved more in terms of recruiting new members, deceiving young people and committing cultish and terrorist acts.

Out of these groups, there are some which indeed have a cultish nature and have adapted terrorist approaches, yet they have managed to conceal their terrorist nature and present themselves as political parties with the intention of exploiting the facilities of governments and international organisations to the advantage of their own cult. These cult – terrorist organisations pose a greater danger and are capable of recruiting more volunteers which will inevitably result in more victims. Any attempt to quell these cult- terrorist organisations should begin with casting light on their true nature followed by exposing them to the international community and bringing them to justice.

One of the groups which best represents cult – terrorist organisations is the National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ). The principles and modus operandi NCRI follows, caused the US State Department to designate the group along with the Mojahedin-e-Khalq ( MKO / MEK ) and the National Liberation Army (NLA) as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation. Having been designated as a terrorist group in the US, NCRI has managed to cover its true nature in Europe and present itself as a democratic group. This cover-up has enabled NCRI to work publicly and actively, taking advantage of the facilities and support of the European governments, international organisations and NGOs.

This paper tries to study and analyze in depth the cult – like characteristics of NCRI, its formation, leadership, members, objectives, modus operandi and its terrorist approaches in a documented manner so that any judgment as to whether it is a cult – terrorist group or not, would be quite precise . All the documents referred to in this paper come from NCRI’s own sources and references and also from MKO/NLA, groups already included in the list of terrorist groups drawn up by the European Union and the United States.

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