Camp Ashraf clashes casualties up
4/8/2011 8:00 PM
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: A Youtube clip showed an Iraqi army force storming Camp Ashraf, which hosts the residents of the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen-e-Khalq, on Friday, leaving 28 people killed and dozens others wounded, according to MEK sources.
The clip, shot by MEK supporters, showed Iraqi forces using armor vehicles in their raid on the camp, which had been under the protection of U.S.
forces after they entered Iraq in 2003 prior to transferring the responsibility of its protection to Iraqi security forces.
Earlier on Friday, an Iraqi military source said three MEK refugees were killed and 13 more wounded by Iraqi forces inside Camp Ashraf in Diala.
“Three Iranians were killed when Iraqi forces from the 5th Division tried to set up a checkpoint inside Camp Ashraf,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
“The Iranian group clashed with the Iraqi forces, prompting the Iraqi security to open fire on them,” he explained.
“Two Iranians set themselves alight in front of the Iraqi forces prior to the clashes, while others pelted the Iraqi soldiers with stones, injuring six of them,” he added.
The Iranian group announced on its website that nine of its elements were killed in the attack by Iraqi forces.
MEK has been based in Camp Ashraf in Diala province, 57 km northeast of Baghdad, since 1980s during the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war.
Several politicians within the Iraqi government have been striving to drive the organization out of the Iraqi territories, claiming that the Mujahideen-e-Khalq fighters took part in suppressing the Shiite uprising that broke out in southern Iraq after the second Gulf War in 1991 against the former regime.
The restive province of Diala lies 57 km northeast of Baghdad.
AmR (TS)
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