Iraq accuses Iran for four dead, 38 wounded in Baghdad mortar attack

Agence France Presse 

March 22, 2000

BYLINE: Farouk Choukri

BAGHDAD, March 22 - Iraq blamed Iran Wednesday for a mortar attack that killed four people and wounded 38 in a busy part of Baghdad in apparent retaliation for a similar strike in Tehran claimed by Iran's armed opposition based in Iraq.

"A group of agents of the Iranian regime fired six mortar bombs at densely populated civilian areas of Baghdad" in the attack on Tuesday night, the official news agency INA said.

Iraq condemned the action as "flagrant aggression" and "reserves the right to retaliate in the appropriate manner", it said, adding that a 60-mm mortar, two unexploded bombs, a compass and other equipment were found abandoned at the scene.

"Two Iraqis were killed as well as two other Arab nationals, while 38 others were wounded," INA said, correcting its earlier report that only one Iraqi was among the dead.

Azzam al-Ahmad, the Palestinian representative to Baghdad, said the other two dead were Palestinians and that the mortars hit the eastern district of Baladiyat, home to most of Iraq's Palestinian refugees.

Women, children and old people were among the wounded taken to hospital after the mortars crashed into apartment blocks, INA said.

A local resident, contacted by AFP, said Baladiyat's squares were filled with people celebrating the Muslim feast of Al-Adha and the Kurdish New Year at the time of the attack.

"It caused a huge panic," he said, adding that the number of dead was expected to rise "because many of the wounded were seriously hurt".

Iran's main armed opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen, has charged that Iranian agents fired several rockets last Saturday at one of its camps near the Iraqi town of Kut, without causing casualties.

The attack came a day after Iranian security services accused Iraq of helping two opposition fighters to sneak into Iran and carry out a mortar attack in northern Tehran.

The Iraq-based Mujahadeen claimed responsibility for the March 13 mortar attack which left four people injured and caused major damage around a housing estate close to the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards.

The Iraqi military has said it shot down an Iranian pilotless plane on the same day near the border, as the Mujahedeen accused Tehran of stepping up reconnaissance flights to attack its bases inside Iraq.

Iraq's support for the Mujahedeen is a key obstacle to a normalisation in relations with Iran, with which it fought a 1980-1988 war. Iran, meanwhile, hosts Iraqi Shiite opposition groups.

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