(April 8, 2012) Pentagon trained members of the dissident Iranian terrorist group M.E.K. in Nevada starting in 2005, after which they returned to Iran and may have engaged in covert activities, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh reports in the April 6th issue of "The New Yorker" magazine.

The group receiving the training incredibly had been listed in 1997 as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, and remains on that list today, Hersh said.

Hersh's article, "Our Men in Iran?" says the training was conducted by the Joint Special Operations Command(JSOC)---a charge JSOC denies.
"U.S. Special Operations Forces were neither aware of nor involved in the training of M.E.K. members," a JSOC spokesperson said.

The Iranian operatives were trained in communications, cryptography, weaponry, and small-unit tactics over a six-month period, a retired four-star general familiar with the details told Hersh. The general said the training was done by JSOC.