Iraqi Troops Attack Mujahedin e-Khalq Camp

Iraqi government troops attacked Camp Ashraf which is the home to some 3,000 members of an opposition Iranian group called the Mujahedin e-Khalq.

Simply known as the Mujahedin to most Iranians, it is a group that was founded during the Shah's rule in Iran to overthrow the monarchy. The group shifted its focus to overthrowing the Islamic Republic with the 1979 Revolution. The Mujahedin was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States in 1970s when it started attacking Americans in Iran as a result of American support of the Shah. Later the group started to attack high ranking officials of the Islamic Republic including an attack on Khamenei before he was Supreme Leader that left his right arm paralyzed.

The group has been relatively quite in recent years and claims to have renounced violence in 2001. Many members of the group relocated to Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule because he gave them shelter in order to oppose the regime in Iran. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, America allowed the group to remain in place and did not intervenee much with the group. In fact, Iran offered to hand over captured Al-Qaida members to the United States in exchange for members of the Mujahedin, but America refused.

Contrary to their name, the group is rather secular in nature and wants to completely remove the Islamic Repbulic. Earlier this year, American troops handed security of the region of the camp to Iraqi forces. The Mujahedin claims that the Iranian government has ordered Iraq to raid the camp and hand over the members. Perhaps this is part of the crackdown on the recent unrest in order to show that the regime is firmly in power. It will also test how much autonomy America allows Iraq to have in conducting its internal affairs even if that benefits Iran.

However, it is important to remember that the Mujahedin do not support Mousavi's and the reformists' "Green" movement in Iran. They advocate a complete change of the current system, but have not been a major player in the recent unrest within Iran although they did hold protests outside of Iran against the government.