Iranian armed opposition says Tehran forces shell one of its Iraq camps

Agence France Presse
August 18, 2000

DUBAI, Aug 18 - The Iraq-based armed Iranian opposition said that one of its camps in southern Iraq had come under mortar attack by Iranian forces in the early hours of Friday morning, causing no casualties in the camp, but with some mortars landing on nearby civilian areas.

"Revolutionary Guards and the clerical regime's terrorists crossed international borders and attacked with 120mm mortars the National Liberation Army's Camp Habib," said a statement by the People's Mujahedeen received by AFP here.

"Heavy and immediate return fire" forced the attackers to flee across the border almost immediately, the statement said.

"Mujahedeen sustained no casualties or damages ... and the mortars landed in defenceless villages and surrounding residential areas, inflicting some material damage on them," it added.

It said the camp was 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of the southern port city of Basrah.

The commander of the forces at Camp Habib responded by warning the Iranian authorities that "from now on, for every single bullet fired, the regime wil face a response ten times stronger."

In the last three weeks, the Mujahedeen has said it has killed or wounded "dozens" of Iranian forces in a series of attacks and ambushes it has conducted in border provinces of western Iran.

It has also carried out a number of mortar attacks against official targets in the capital Tehran.

The presence of the Mujahedeen in Iraq is one of the main stumbling blocks to the normalisation of relations between Tehran and Baghdad, who have not signed a peace treaty after the eight year conflict between them which ended in 1988.

sam/js