Iraq acknowledges deaths at Iran exile camp
2009-07-30

Nations Iran Iraq City Baghdad States Anbar Province Category Regions Regions Asia Middle East Source (Reuters)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's government acknowledged on Thursday that seven Iranian exiles were killed when Iraqi forces took control of their camp this week north of Baghdad.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh earlier denied anyone died in the clashes between Iraqi forces and protesters who tried to block their entry into Camp Ashraf, home to the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI) for two decades.

Iraq, Iran and the United States call the dissident group a terrorist organization. Iraq's Shi'ite Arab-led government wants to close the camp and send residents back to Iran or to a third country.

Camp residents have reported that Iraqi forces stormed the camp, shooting or beating residents and arresting others.

Resident Behzad Saffari, acting as a spokesman for other residents, said a dozen had been killed, at least six of whom were shot by police. Hundreds were wounded, he said.

Dabbagh, on Thursday, said seven people had died but disputed residents' accounts of how the deaths occurred.

"Five of them threw themselves in front of Iraqi police vehicles ... That's not death by shooting, but by rioting."

Dabbagh said the other two people were shot by PMOI snipers inside the camp when they tried to leave. Iraqi officials regard the group as a threat and say many of the camp's 3,500 residents are brainwashed or forced to stay.

Some human rights groups and supporters in the West have been highly critical of the way Iraq has handled Ashraf.

They say closing the camp and driving residents out against their will would violate international human rights law.

"TIME TO LEAVE"

The PMOI said on Tuesday residents would be willing to move back to Iran but only on condition they were guaranteed immunity from prosecution, jail, torture or execution under international observation, a condition Tehran is unlikely to accept.

"They cannot remove us. The people of Ashraf are ready to die," Saffari told Reuters.

"This is a matter of pride and dignity that we stay. You cannot say to people who've been here for 20 years that suddenly it's time to leave."

The PMOI was given shelter in Iraq by former leader Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab who fought a bloody eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s.

Iraq's Shi'ite-led government, which includes many former Saddam opponents who lived for years in exile in Iran, has a close but complex relationship with Tehran.

The PMOI surrendered most of its weapons to U.S. forces after the 2003 invasion of Iraq but its presence remains a source of friction between Baghdad, Washington and Tehran.

"We welcome the move (raiding the camp), although it was late," Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani as quoted as saying by state television on Wednesday. "We hope the Iraqi government not to let these terrorists to remain in Iraq."

The group began as leftist opponents of Iran's Shah but fell out with Shi'ite clerics who took power in the 1979 revolution.

While Iraqi officials insist they are respecting dissidents' rights, Ashraf residents accuse Iraqi forces of laying siege to the camp and sometimes blocking the entry of food and medicines.

The clashes this week add an uncomfortable twist to the U.S.-Iraqi relationship as Washington tries to stress Iraqi's increasing military primacy ahead of the U.S. withdrawal by 2012 but is loathe to be accused of standing by if abuses occur.

Iraq has "the right as a sovereign nation to get into the camp and establish some command and control and some order within the camp, to determine what is in there, and that's what they've tried to do," said Brigadier General Steve Lanza, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq.

"There has been a little bit of violence that has since been mitigated, but once again we're encouraging restraint on both sides," Lanza told Reuters TV in Washington.

(Additional reporting by Deborah Lutterbeck in Washington and Tehran bureau; Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Robert Woodward)