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Rocket barrage hits Iranian exiles at camp near Baghdad airport

Xinhua, October 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

A rocket barrage struck on Thursday a camp housing an exile Iranian opposition group near Baghdad airport, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.

The attack occurred in the evening when some 25 Katyusha rockets struck Camp Hurriya (or Liberty), a former U.S. military base located near the Baghdad airport in the southwest of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the source said on condition of anonymity.

The rockets were fired from al-Bakriyah district in western Baghdad, the source said, adding that there were no immediate reports about casualties among the People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), which is also known as Mujahideen Khalq Organization (MKO).

The rocket barrage did not affect the flight movement in Baghdad airport, as the barrage occurred outside the airport perimeter, the source said.

The Iranian exiles have been relocated two years ago under the supervision of the United Nations mission in Iraq from their former base Camp Ashraf near the city of Khalis, some 60 km northeast of Baghdad, to Camp Hurriya.

The United Nations frequently urged the international community to speed up its efforts to resettle the Iranian exiles in third countries.

The PMOI was founded in 1965 in opposition to the shah of Iran and subsequently fought to oust the Islamic regime which took power in the 1979 revolution.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, and got permission from Iran's foe Saddam Hussein to set up Camp Ashraf in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala near the Iranian border.

After the PMOI fighters were disarmed following the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq, the camp remained under the protection of the U.S. military police for five years before the Iraqi government took over the security responsibility in the camp.

In late 2011, the Iraqi government and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq struck a deal to move the camp residents in Diyala province to Baghdad temporarily until the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) gets the refugees resettled in a third country.

Ties between the Shiite Muslim country of Iran and the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq have been picked up considerably since the ouster of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime in a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Iraq and Iran fought a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s, resulting in the loss of one million lives. Endit