Fears grow for exiled Marxists in Camp Ashraf
CONCERN is growing for the well-being of about 3400 Iranian exiles, who have spent a quarter of a century in a refugee camp in Iraq. The residents of Camp Ashraf, 40 miles north of Baghdad, are members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MKO).
This is a Marxist-Islamist organisation that co-operated with supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini in toppling the Shah’s regime in 1979. But the group then fell out with and fought the government of the Islamic republic that came to power, and was later expelled. The MKO is classified by the United States as a terrorist organisation.
The residents of the camp now find themselves trapped. They are hated, not only by the regime in Tehran, but also by many Iranians, because they co-operated with Saddam Hussein’s forces in the war against Iran. By the same token, they are despised by the current Iranian-backed government in Baghdad for having co-operated with the former Iraqi dictator.
