Iraqi Government takes Control of Camp Ashraf in 2nd Day of Fighting
AFP says that fighting went on for a second day on Wednesday inside the Camp Ashraf compound of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (People's Holy Warriors or MEK) between Iraqi security forces and camp residents. The Iraqi government is reportedly saying that the camp had been secured by late Wednesday.
The some 3000 Iranians in the camp had originally come there in the 1980s to fight Iran and undertake destabilizing operations against it during the Iran-Iraq War, since they opposed the clerical government of Ayatollah Khomeini. Others came later, in the Saddam period, to harass and spy on Iran. For more background, see this this NYT article.
Although the guerrillas charge that Iraqi troops had killed 7 camp residents in the clashes on Tuesday, the Iraqi government denied that there had been any deaths. Dozens and even hundreds of residents are said to have been wounded, and two Iraqi policemen are dead. Update: The Iraqi government is now acknowledging that 7 MEK members were killed in the assault on Camp Ashraf.
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that about 1,000 Iraqi security personnel entered the camp on Tuesday, after the MEK authorities had refused to allow any Iraqi police inside the camp. It quotes official Iranian Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dabbagh, who complained that press coverage had spoken of an Iraqi "assault" on the camp. He said that it is nonsense to talk of Iraqi security forces assaulting the camp, since it was on GOI premises. The Iraqi government is complaining that stone-throwing camp residents injured 25 actived-duty policemen in thea action.
Here is an MEK video clip of government forces, including an armored vehicle, attacking camp residents
Muhsin al-Hakim, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) spokesman in Tehran, said that based on the letters sent to him, there is a substantial number of Mojahedin who want to return to Iran if they can be assured that they will not be prosecuted. Al-Hakim is the son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of ISCI inside Iraq, and it is quite odd that he has become a spokesman for the MEK's desires.
The USG Open Source Center translates the comments on the Camp Ashraf events by hard line speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani:
'Iran Speaker Praises Iraq For Taking Action Against MKO's Ashraf Camp
Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Document Type: OSC Translated Excerpt
(Presenter) After (several) years, the army of Iraq has gained control over the camp of the terrorist grouplet Monafeqin [the Iranian regime calls them "hypocrites"/ Munafiqin instead of Holy Warriors/ Mojahedin], which is called Ashraf camp in Diyala province, by entering this military camp of Monafeqin. The American Department of State has implicitly expressed concerns over the Iraqi forces' entry into the Monafeqin's camp and has said that Washington will closely watch the situation. . .
(Reporter) The Speaker of the Islamic Majles also described the Iraqi government's action in taking control over the Monafeqin's camp as late but praiseworthy.
(Larijani) Now after the Monafeqin worked as mercenaries of Saddam's regime for years, we were informed yesterday that the government of Iraq had attacked Ashraf camp. You have heard the yells and screams of the leader of the Monafeqin through the media. Although the Iraqi government took this action very late, their decision to clear the land of Iraq from the dirt of the existence of terrorists, deserves appreciation.
(Description of Source: Tehran Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1 in Persian -- state-run television)'
Aljazeera English has video of the Iraqi police beating civilians at Camp Ashraf:
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 7/30/2009 01:06:00 AM
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5 Comments:
Juan,
Ali al-Dabbagh is the official spokesperson for the Iraqi government, not the Iranian.
A senior American military adviser in Baghdad has concluded in an unusually blunt memo that the Iraqi forces suffer from deeply entrenched deficiencies but are now capable of protecting the Iraqi government and that it is time “for the US to declare victory and go home.”
i agree wholeheartedly with the usa getting the funk out of Iraq pronto leto like right now but what is with the declaring 'victory' part ??? just some face saving manuever ??? the usa was losing and losing big until the Iraqi Anti Occupation Anti Oil Stealers Freedom Fighters were bought off and simply stopped fighting. if the Iraqi Freedom Fighters had comtinued to kill amerikan Oil stealing Occupiers it would have resulted in yet another amerikan defeat, albiet one on a grander scale than VietNam. cheney's Oil stealing gambit was on track to becoming one of the most colossal upsets in the history of warfare - the IED was absolutely destroying the much vaunted and supposedly superior military machine that the usa had assembled.
but yeah the stench of the amerikan Oil Stealing Occupation is absolutely sickening and it has been way past time for the amerikans to pull up stakes, leave the Oil behind and decamp.
Britain launched its first sweeping inquiry into the unpopular Iraq war on Thursday — a potentially explosive national reckoning that will call ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair as a witness, and seek evidence from former White House staff
John Chilcot, an ex-civil servant and inquiry chairman, said the study would expose errors in the build-up and tumultuous aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion. He vowed his panel wouldn't shy from delivering embarrassing truths to key figures in London and Washington.
"If we find that mistakes were made, that there were issues which could have been dealt with better, we will say so frankly," Chilcot told reporters.
But Chilcot's panel — which includes four other officials, including Winston Churchill's biographer and an ex-British ambassador to Russia — will only be able to issue rebukes and recommendations. It is not permitted to establish criminal or civil liability for mistakes.
"The inquiry is not a court of law and nobody is on trial. But I want to make something absolutely clear — the committee will not shy away from making criticism," Chilcot said.
The US and Iraq would just as soon their former satraps, IOW, their CIA financed Proxy Army, vanished without a trace.
From March 30th 2009:
The US backed Iranian paramilitary group (MEK) "brainwashed cult members" to be "detoxified." (In spook-speak that most likely transliterates as 'annihilation') by the nominal Iraqi 'government':
BAGHDAD, March 27 -- Iraq's national security adviser said Friday that the government intends to move an Iranian opposition group from its sanctuary near the Iranian border to a location where leaders and "brainwashed cult members" will be separated and the latter "detoxified."
Mowaffak al-Rubaie's remarks about the future of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, were his most detailed to date on how his government intends to deal with an issue that has been an irritant in relations between Iraq's government, which has built close ties with Iran, and the U.S. government. The group received support from Saddam Hussein's government and has been designated a terrorist organization by the State Department, but U.S. officials credit the MEK with providing information about Iran's nuclear program.
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Members of the group "should understand that their days in Iraq are numbered," Rubaie told Western journalists at a briefing in the Green Zone. "We are literally counting them."
Iraqi officials, including Maliki, have in recent months publicly lambasted the group, generally during or after official visits to Iran.
The U.S. military has protected the group's camp in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.
In Full at the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032702954.html
Their work is done... Kurdish 'massacres' blamed on Saddam.
w.r.t. McClatchy : “Iraqi security forces from the Ministry of the Interior raided Camp Ashraf, the stronghold of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK),” and Reuters : “Iraq will help Turkey and the United States in efforts to combat the Kurdistan Workers Party's (PKK) until the guerrilla movement is eliminated, a senior Iraqi official said Tuesday.” see also Stars and Stripes : “The other Iraq war : In Kurdish Iraq, hostilities simmering with Iran, Turkey” : SURAGLA, Iraq – In this rough-hewn border hamlet in the jagged Qandil Mountains, where armed guerrillas are the law and the whistle of artillery is the soundtrack, most villagers no longer bother to seek shelter when the bombs start falling. A ceaseless, nearly invisible war criss-crossing the borders between Turkey, Iran and Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Iraq has left thousands of impoverished Kurdish farmers resigned to their grim fate. “Our lives are worthless because today we build up our house, tomorrow it will be destroyed by shelling – that’s our life,” said farmer Ahmed Abdullah. “Now, every day we wish for death.” The undeclared war, pitting Turkish and Iranian armed forces against Kurdish separatist fighters based in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, has been waged for years with tacit approval from the U.S., which supplies the Turkish military with intelligence on the guerrillas. And when the Turkish military plans an artillery barrage in the area, officers give American troops advance notice, according to U.S. soldiers working in the region. Local villagers are not so lucky and, while no solid numbers are available, there have been many reports of civilian deaths and injuries. More often, the attacks kill livestock, set pastures and farms ablaze and flatten homes. In between shelling, shepherds who graze their sheep along the poorly-marked ‘border’ must worry about being captured by Iranian troops, a fate that has befallen at least nine Iraqi Kurds in the past month, according to local officials... ie., in its end-game campaign to eliminate armed groups, Iraqi and (in the case of the Kurds) Turkish troops are acting as the "hammer" — and Iran is the "anvil".
The governments of Turkey and Iran say they are defending themselves against: the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which seeks to establish an independent Kurdish state within Turkey; and their Iranian counterparts, the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK). Both groups are branded "terrorist organizations" by the U.S. government... Dressed in the traditional baggy tunic of Kurdish fighters, the [PJAK political] officer, who would only give his nickname, “Heresh,” dismissed the complaints of Kurdish officials that guerrillas like him are uninvited guests causing neighboring civil wars to spill into Iraq. “Our political philosophy says this is ‘Kurdistan’ and we can stay anywhere we want,” he said. “There’s no Iraqi or Iranian land – it’s Kurdish land.” With all of the animosity between the U.S. and Iran, Heresh says he is puzzled that the U.S. has declared PJAK to be "terrorists", and frozen the group’s assets.
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