Tens of rockets fired at Iranian dissident camp near Baghdad airport

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—As many as 50 rockets were fired at the camp of an Iranian dissident group outside of Baghdad Monday night, injuring more than 40, according to Iraqi security personnel and statements from the dissident group.

Camp Liberty, located near Baghdad’s international airport, houses members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI, also known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, MEK) waiting to be resettled outside of the country.

About 20 rockets “fell on Camp Liberty,” said Saad Maan, spokesperson for the Baghdad Operations Command.

According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a coalition considered the PMOI’s parliament-in-exile, the number was much higher.

“More than 50 missiles rained down at Camp Liberty, several of which landed outside the camp,” reads a statement issued by the Secretariat of the NCRI. “The assault caused major destruction and fire in the camp, with missile craters seven feet wide and five feet deep. Based on reports received until midnight, 40 resident (sic) had been injured in the attack.”

The NCRI blamed the attack on militias affiliated with Iran’s Quds force and said the attack came after Iraqi forces had blocked fuel, food and medicine from entering the camp for eight days.

The PMOI is the largest Iranian opposition group that advocates the overthrow of Iran’s Islamic regime. The group renounced violence in 2001 and terrorist designations of the group were lifted by the European Union in 2009 and the United States and Canada in 2012 after they closed their paramilitary base Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

Iran condemned the lifting of the terrorist designation.

The PMOI was accused of participating in the suppression of Iraq’s Shiite majority under Saddam Hussein. It has denied the accusations but remains hated by Iraq’s Shiite population.

Camp Liberty has been home to the PMOI since 2012; the site was formerly a US military base.

Twenty-six people were killed in a rocket attack on the camp last October.

Tens of rockets fired at Iranian dissident camp near Baghdad airport

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