Word: ashraf
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...Tuesday, Baghdad obliged. Iraqi security forces wrenched control of the MEK base at Camp Ashraf from its leaders after they denied an Iraqi request to establish a police station inside the camp. Clashes ensued that, according to the MEK, left six residents dead and some 400 wounded. (The casualties have not been independently verified.) Baghdad denies using lethal force. A video distributed by the MEK shows baton-wielding security forces beating unarmed protesters and using water cannons on a crowd, as well as several bloodied individuals. (Read a story about a visit to Camp Ashraf in April...
...Wednesday, according to Shahriar Kia, an MEK spokesman contacted by phone. Iraqi security forces remain in the camp and "have surrounded all the places," he told TIME. Most of the camp's 3,400 residents have begun an open-ended hunger strike, Kia added, until Iraqi troops withdraw from Ashraf, U.S. troops assume control and the perpetrators of the attacks are tried and punished "in an international tribunal on the charges of crimes against humanity." Those are big things to ask for and unlikely to happen anytime soon, especially given that the U.S. military is looking to untangle itself from...
Baghdad took over responsibility for Camp Ashraf, located some 40 miles north of the capital, from the U.S. military earlier this year as part of a wide-ranging bilateral security pact. Since then, Iraqi officials have ratcheted up the pressure, repeatedly warning that they would close the camp on the grounds that its residents were "terrorists" and "illegal aliens...
...Baghdad act now? The sudden escalation with Ashraf may have more to do with a bruised Iranian regime's bid to stamp out its opponents both at home and abroad than with any pressing Iraqi national interest. Iran's regime - roiled by continuing postelection unrest at home that poses the most serious threat to its rule since the 1979 Revolution - may have finally put its foot down regarding the MEK. (See pictures of the turbulent aftermath of Iran's presidential election...
...ruling was based on an earlier British court decision that ordered the terrorist designation be lifted because of a lack of evidence that the MEK had been involved in terrorist activity since it renounced violence in 2001. (In Iraq, the U.S. Army disarmed MEK's Ashraf compound in the country's east in 2003, calling it a security threat. The Iraqi government has indicated it will close the camp completely...