By ADAM SCHRECK
FILE – In this file photograph taken on Friday, Feb. 17, 2012, Iraqi security forces enter through the main gate of Camp Ashraf in Khalis, northeast of Baghdad, Iraq. Members of an Iranian dissident group have been killed inside a contested camp in Iraq, according to the opposition organization and the Iraqi government, though their accounts of the circumstances differ. The deaths occurred at Camp Ashraf, a Saddam Hussein-era community that is home to about 100 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)
BAGHDAD (AP) — Members of an Iranian dissident group were killed Sunday at a contested camp in Iraq, according to the opposition organization and the Iraqi government, though their accounts of the circumstances differ.
The deaths occurred at Camp Ashraf, a Saddam Hussein-era community northeast of Baghdad that is home to about 100 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. The group, known by the acronym MEK, opposes Iran’s clerical regime. The Iraqi government wants to shut the camp and move MEK members out of the country.
A spokesman for the MEK’s parent organization, the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, alleged that those killed died in a raid launched by Iraqi security forces early Sunday. The spokesman, Shahin Gobadi, said some of those killed were found handcuffed behind the back.
Gobadi said that 44 people inside the camp were killed, and he provided photos allegedly from the scene that showed the bodies of several people who appeared to have been killed with gunshots. It was not possible to independently verify the authenticity of the photos.
A police official in Diyala province, where Camp Ashraf is located, corroborated the account of an Iraqi raid on the camp overnight, and said that at least 19 people were killed. He agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
Ali al-Moussawi, a spokesman for Iraq’s prime minister, confirmed that some camp residents were killed.
However, he said a preliminary investigation suggests they died as a result of infighting among camp residents, and he denied that Iraqi forces were involved. Authorities are still trying to determine the number of casualties, he said.
Gobadi dismissed the government spokesman’s claim as “preposterous” and “absolute lies.”
Iranian state television took note of the attack, reporting at one point that 23 MEK members were killed by “the Iraqi people and mujahedeen.” It gave no sources for the information and didn’t air any footage.
Previous Iraqi raids on the camp, including one in April 2011, claimed dozens of lives.
The acting U.N. envoy to Iraq, Gyorgy Busztin, condemned the events at Camp Ashraf but did not assign blame.
“The priority for the Iraqi government is to provide immediate medical assistance to the injured and to ensure their security and safety against any violence from any side,” Busztin said. He added that the U.N. mission “is using all possible means to conduct its own assessment of the situation.”
Camp Ashraf was once home to more than 3,000 MEK followers, but most moved to a former U.S. military base on the outskirts of Baghdad last year while the U.N. works to resettle them abroad.
The Baghdad-area camp, known as Camp Liberty, has since been targeted by militants in rocket attacks that have killed 10 people and injured many more, according to the MEK.
The MEK last month accused the Iraqi authorities of deliberately cutting off water and electricity to Camp Ashraf, a charged denied by Georges Bakoos, who oversees the MEK issue for the Iraqi government.
He said in an interview last week that authorities would be moving ahead with court proceedings to evict the last Camp Ashraf holdouts, possibly as soon as in the next few weeks.
Bakoos could not be reached for comment Sunday.
The MEK fought alongside Iraqi forces in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and several thousand of its members were granted sanctuary inside Iraq by Saddam. The group renounced violence in 2001 and was taken off the U.S. terrorism list last September.
Iraq’s current Shiite-led government, which has strengthened ties with neighboring Shiite powerhouse Iran, considers the MEK’s presence in Iraq illegal and wants its followers out of the country. It has been working with the United Nations to resettle MEK members, but the process has been slow.
A total of 162 MEK members have been resettled abroad so far, mostly in Albania.
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Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed reporting.
