Iranian dissident group defies order to leave Iraq

16 December 2009 

McClatchy Newspapers

By LAITH HAMMOUDI

An Iranian dissident group vowed Tuesday not to abandon its besieged camp north of Baghdad despite an Iraqi military ultimatum to pull up stakes or face an eviction that could turn bloody.

Iraqi security forces led a group of international journalists on a tour of the camp occupied by the Mujahedin-e Khalq, the first time authorities have allowed media to visit since a deadly raid on the compound last July.

Since then, the 3,000 or so remaining MEK members have been in a standoff with the Iraqi government, which has imposed a blockade on the camp and a ban on visitors in an effort to force the former militant group’s relocation.

“If the Iraqi government forces us to leave the camp, then we would prefer to die here,” said Hoshkand Dodgani, 49, an MEK member who’s spent 23 years at the camp in Iraq. “Our main sin is our refusal to submit to the Iranian regime.”

The MEK is committed to the overthrow of the cleric-led regime in neighboring Iran. In 1986, the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein allowed the MEK to set up base about 65 miles north of Baghdad, in a sprawling compound that became known as Camp Ashraf.

U.S. forces disarmed the MEK following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and until recently the residents lived there in limbo under U.S. protection from the hostile, new Iranian-supported Iraqi government. Shiite Muslim leaders, many of whom lived for years in Iran, have been eager to return the dissidents to Tehran, where they could face prosecution. The Iraqi government has promised to move the group in accordance with international laws.