8 dead as Iraq takes Camp Ashraf

[FireGarden]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...forces-storm-iranian-exiles-camp-1765354.html

The assault on Camp Ashraf, 80 miles north of Baghdad, is the latest episode in the strange history of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a cult-like organisation that has in the past been allied both to Saddam Hussein and the US in its long battle with Tehran's Islamic government.

Three days ago Iraqi soldiers stormed into Ashraf, which is 19 square miles in extent and home to 3,500 people, with the purpose of establishing a police station and raising the Iraqi flag. Though the MEK lost their guns when the US occupied Iraq in 2003, its members fought fiercely and two policemen were among those killed, one hit on the head and another stabbed in the neck, according to AFP. The Iraqi government says six of the camp's inmates also died.

 

[Darth Rotor]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...forces-storm-iranian-exiles-camp-1765354.html

Wasn't this bound to occur, eventually?

If nothing else, Maliki can use this as an item of interest in his various negoatiations with his neighbor, Iran, who aren't keen on MEK.

DR

 

[FireGarden]

http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSL5433668

Iraqi authorities are blocking supplies of food and water going into a camp east of Baghdad where Iranian exiles have been living for over 20 years, Swiss- based human rights activists said on Wednesday.

[...] "Preventing people getting food is a gross violation of international law ... This has been going on for 10 days. It is totally scandalous," Ziegler, a top adviser to the U.N. Human Rights Council, told a news conference.

[...] It showed an armoured vehicle drive into crowds apparently inside the camp, zig-zagging from side to side and running several people down.

[...] Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said last week that five of the seven the government acknowledges were killed threw themselves in front of police vehicles, while the other two were shot by PMOI snipers to stop them leaving the camp.

"Threw themselves" or "didn't get out of the way fast enough"? With that in mind...

Iraq denies blocking food to Iranian exile camp
http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSL6405271._CH_.2400

"That is incorrect ... We do not block food or medical supplies, but we do block building supplies such as cement and metal," Dabbagh said.

[...] Iraq's Shi'ite-led government, which includes many former opponents of Saddam Hussein who were exiled in Iran, has close ties to Tehran and is unsympathetic to the PMOI.

[...] Iraq, like Iran and the United States, sees the PMOI as a terrorist organisation. On Tuesday, Iraq's state security minister said none of the camp's 3,500 residents would be granted asylum in Iraq.