Deadly Attack against Camp Ashraf Looming

Iraqi forces are preparing for another deadly attack against Camp Ashraf, the home to 3,400 Iranian dissidents within Iraq, according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

In an international conference at the European Parliament in Brussels on 19 October, NCR president-elect Maryam Rajavi called on the EU, the US and the UN for urgent action to prevent what she fears will be a massacre if not extermination of the residents.

According to reports from inside the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iraqi forces under the command of prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki are preparing for a new attack against Ashraf. They have also completed their training for the assault.

The preoperational steps have been monitored by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his terrorist Qods force, according to information obtained by the NCR. It believes the attack is being urged by Tehran, unconditionally agreed to by Iraq, and has been prepared for months.

An attack by Iraqi forces on the camp on 8 April left 36 dead and 350 injured. There was an earlier attack on the camp in July 2009.

Mrs Rajavi stressed that any injury inflicted on the residents of Ashraf would be the total responsibility of the US and the UN. This was because the US had signed a protection agreement with each of Ashraf’s residents in exchange for their voluntary disarmament, accepting responsibility for their protection until final clarification of their situation. She urged the international community to support the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) by providing ample time for the completion of the process giving Ashraf residents refugee status.

Urging the creation of a permanent team of UN observers in Ashraf to protect the residents until they are relocated outside Iraq, she told the conference: “Inaction and silence in face of a predictable crime would be to trample on all commitments, principles and values of the founding fathers of the United States. This does not fail to shock the conscience of humanity today and will forever be remembered.”

Iraq has constantly blocked efforts towards a peaceful solution of the Camp Ashraf crisis, the NCR claims.

The US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR) has called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to declare null and void the internationally illegal December 2011 deadline set by al-Maliki to close down the camp. USCCAR believes Iraq wants to sabotage the efforts of UNHCR to ensure the safe and secure resettlement of the residents of Camp Ashraf in third countries.

Located 80km north of Baghdad, the camp houses some 3,400 people linked to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), the principal resistance to the Iranian regime. The camp was disarmed after the United States and its allies invaded Iraq in 2003. The Americans then protected the camp before transferring its control to the Iraqis in 2010.

Rob writer is a Freelance Journalist, Sub-editor and expert on Iranian issue.

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