Rocket attack kills Iranian exiles in Iraq

Katyusha rockets fired on a camp housing Iranian dissidents near Baghdad have killed five members of the opposition group, Iraqi security officials say.

Saturday, February 09, 2013

Katyusha rockets fired on a camp housing Iranian dissidents near Baghdad have killed five members of the opposition group, Iraqi security officials say.About 40 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) group were wounded in Saturday’s attack, along with three Iraqi policemen.MEK calls for the overthrow of Iran’s leaders and fought alongside the forces of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on the transit camp, a former American military base known as Camp Liberty, adjacent to Baghdad’s international airport."At 5:30am around 18 Katyusha rockets landed in the camp, west of Baghdad, killing five people and wounding 42,” an Iraqi policeman at the base said, speaking on condition of anonymity.A spokesman for the interior ministry, however, said only one person had been killed and that reports of more deaths were "exaggerated’.The group provided amateur video and photos it said showed the aftermath of the attack. One photo showed six bodies swaddled in blankets lying on the ground in a hallway.Amateur video showed wounded, some with blood-covered faces, being treated at a small clinic.A spokesman for the MEK said they did not know for sure who was behind the attack, but said one likely suspect wasIran’s Quds force - an elite unit of the Revolutionary Guards with a special focus on military operations outside the country.A government official told Al Jazeera that the government had no way of knowing where the rockets were fired from.Agencies