IRGC Official Sees Evacuation of Camp Ashraf as Iraqis’ Retaliation
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A top official with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the attack on Camp Ashraf on September and its subsequent was a partial revenge of the Iraqi people for the pain and suffering the MKO terrorist group inflicted on them.
The representative of the Supreme Leader at the IRGC Ali Saeedi referred to the role that the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorists played in the suppression of Iraqi nation’s uprising in 1991, and said, “The MKO terrorists were accomplices in massacring many Iraqi people, including Shiites there.”
He added that a part of the Iraqi "Intifada movement that started at that time was suppressed by these (MKO) elements, but eventually the oppressed Iraqi people managed to take partial revenge for that historical injustice."
“People of Iraq want these (terrorists) out of their sacred land, and eventually, too, they (MKO members) evacuated Camp Ashraf in humiliation last night and were moved to a different spot, and now the US is after a shelter for them.”
Camp Ashraf, which housed members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization in eastern Iraq, was fully evacuated by the Iraqi authorities from its much-hated residents on Wednesday night.
The evacuation took place under the supervision of UN officials and more than 30 MKO terrorists were removed from the camp in Iraq’s Diyala province, about 80 kilometers west of the Iranian border and 40 kilometers north of Baghdad.
The official end of MKO terrorist group’s activities in Camp Ashraf, took place some days after the MKO terrorists clashed with a group of protesting Iraqi citizens, who were opposed to their presence in their neighborhood, on September 1.
The remaining members of MKO terrorists were transferred from Camp Ashraf (now the Camp of New Iraq) to Camp Liberty at 11 pm Wednesday night, local time.
The MKO, listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community, fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, fought on the side of Saddam Hussain during the 1980-88 Iraqi imposed war on Iran, and was given the camp by Saddam.
The group has been behind numerous acts of terror against Iranian civilians and officials, and was involved in the 1991 bloody repression of Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq, and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds in the country's north.
In December 2011, the United Nations and the Iraqi government agreed to relocate some 3,000 MKO members from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty -- a former US military base near Baghdad International Airport.
The Iraqi government planned to close the camp at the end of December 2011, but the US pressure forced it to delay the evacuation.
