Iraqi police said about 15 rockets hit Camp Liberty, a former US base near Baghdad worldwide Airport that now houses the exiled Iranian opposition group known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).
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A Shi’ite Muslim militia in Iraq claimed responsibility on Friday for a deadly rocket attack on an exiled Iranian opposition group housed near Baghdad, according to Iran’s Fars news agency. Iraqi officials at least three of the dead and 16 of the wounded were Iraqi soldiers.
In late 2011, the Iraqi government and the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq struck a deal to move the camp residents in Diyala province to Baghdad temporarily until the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) gets the refugees resettled in a third country.
It was not immediately clear whether the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), based in Iraq since the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, was the target of the attacks.
As it sought to destabilise the capital Islamic State militants fired rockets close to the worldwide airport.
The MKO is a dissident group outlawed by the Iranian government after the 1979 revolution.
A representative from the group, Afchine Alavi, said all told, a few 80 rockets landed at the camp.
This was not the first attack since Camp Liberty became home to the Iranian group, which is strongly opposed to Iran’s clerical regime.
“The Department, through its Senior Advisor for MEK Resettlement, will remain actively engaged in the worldwide effort to relocate the residents of Camp Hurriya to safe, permanent locations as soon as possible”, said Kerry.
Iraq’s current Shiite-led government strengthened relations with Iranian government and the Iraqi government maintains PMOI’s occupancy in the country is illegal. “The United States and the United Nations are fully aware of this reality”, she added.
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It successfully lobbied to be removed from the US terror list, but the more than 2,000 remaining dissidents at Camp Liberty are essentially stranded and demanding relocation.
