Middle East News
Three exiled Iranian dissidents killed in Iraq clashes
Apr 8, 2011, 8:15 GMT
Baquba, Iraq - Three members of an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group were killed Friday in clashes with Iraqi forces, security sources said.
Fighting between the People's Mujahidin of Iran (PMOI) organization at the Camp Ashraf compound in Baquba, Diyala province also left 14 members of the group and six soldiers injured.
However, according to PMOI, 25 people have been killed at the camp, including six women, and hundreds injured in the violence.
The PMOI, also known as the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, was founded in 1965 to oppose the government of the shah. In 1981 it started an armed campaign against the new Islamic government.
In mid 1980s, Iraq's then-president, Saddam Hussein, allocated it a military base near the border with Iran.
After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US military disarmed the group and was responsible for protecting it in the face of sectarian violence throughout Iraq. In the summer of 2008, that responsibility was handed over to the Iraqi army.
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