No subject

<http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/115/article_4545.asp>
Iraqi police in new clashes at Mujahedeen camp
Article published on the 2009-07-29 Latest update 2009-07-29 14:50 TU

Clashes flared for the second day at Camp Ashraf in Iraq's Diyala
province, as security forces battle members of the exiled Iranian
rebel group, the People's Mujahedeen.

"Fighting resumed when Iraqi police established a police station and
hoisted the Iraqi flag," police Lieutenant Colonel Ibrahim al-Karawi
said on Wednesday.

He said that the security forces now control 75 per cent of the camp,
which soldiers stormed on Tuesday. The People's Mujahedeen said that
seven camp residents were killed and 385 wounded. Police say that 300
residents were injured, along with 110 security personnel, and that
more than 50 camp residents have been detained.

Two police officers died in hospital from injuries sustained the day before.

French-based leaders of the group, which calls itself the National
Council of Resistance in Iran, slammed the police action.

"Some People's Mujaheddin in Camp Ashraf said that they were ready to
return to Iran," the movement's Afchine Alavi told RFI's French
service, claiming that the Iraqi government is acting under orders
from Tehran.

Rajavi on Wednesday called the seizure of the camp "a flagrant
violation of international conventions".

The Speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, described the
operation as "praiseworthy" but "rather late". Leading Iranian MP
Hossein Sobhani-Nia called for the residents to be handed over to
Tehran.

Last March the Iraqi government decided to move the camp's occupants
into the desert, further away from the frontier. Iraqi security forces
took over responsibility for the camp from the US military three
months ago under the Status of Forces Agreement.

The People's Mujahadeen was founded in 1965 to fight the Shah of Iran
but came into conflict with hardline Islamists after the 1979 Islamic
revolution. Camp Ashraf was established in the 1980s, during Saddam
Hussein's war with Iran, as a base for operations against the Iranian
government.

"These dissidents were protected by the Americans in Iraq really since
2003 because the Americans, one way or another, saw them as an ally
against the Iranian government," says UK-based journalist Patrick
Cockburn.

Analysis: Author and journalist Patrick Cockburn



29/07/2009 by Marco Chown Oved

"The mujahideen are very unpopular with many Iraqis... because they
were allied to Saddam Hussein," he told RFI. "So it's not too
surprising that they've always been eager to get rid of them. As the
US withdraws, the mujahideen didn't really have any protector."