Iraq's government denied on Wednesday that any Iranian exiles had been killed in clashes with security forces when they seized control of their camp, but residents said eight had died and distributed images of bodies.
Iraqi forces took control Tuesday of Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad, which for two decades has been home to members of the People's Mujahideen of Iran, or PMOI, a dissident group.
Bezhad Saffari, an Ashraf resident and lawyer, said forces stormed in and shot or beat many people, killing eight and wounding 500. Many others were arrested, he said.
The Iraqi government has said it will close the camp and expel its 3,500 residents back to Iran or to a third country.
"This morning's report is that there was not a single death among the PMOI," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. "The police have an order not to use any live rounds."
He added that some residents had attacked police with knives and rocks. "There are efforts under way to calm them," he said.
Ashraf residents said Iraqi forces stormed the camp, where former leader Saddam gave refuge to opponents of the Iranian government, on Tuesday. Later in evening, they said, security forces open fired on protesters and beat others with rifles.
TV footage and photos obtained by Reuters from a camp resident showed three bodies with visible gunshot wounds, and other residents having severe head wounds stitched up. It was impossible to verify where or when they were taken.
U.S. says not involved
About 3,500 ex-Iranian fighters and relatives live in the camp, first set up in 1986 when they helped Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran war. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, American troops disarmed the fighters and confined them to the camp.
The Americans handed over responsibility for the camp to the Iraqis to comply with a security agreement that took effect on Jan. 1 but said they would maintain a force nearby to ensure humane treatment of the Iranians. Tensions rose as the Iraqi government stepped up efforts to get the group to leave the country in a friendly gesture to close ally Iran, which considers the exiles part of a terrorist group.
Iran thanked the Iraqi government for the raid.
"Yesterday, we heard of the Iraqi government raid on Camp Ashraf," said parliament speaker Ali Larijani. "This is appreciated, that the Iraqi government decided to clean Iraq from the dirty presence of terrorists. However, it was a late move," he said Wednesday during an open session of parliament broadcast live on state radio.
At a news conference in Baghdad, the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, Lt.-Gen. Charles Jacoby, said there were no U.S. forces up near the camp and that he had not known that Iraqi forces had planned to launch an operation there.
Lt.-Gen. Ali Gaidan, commander of Iraq's ground forces, refused to be drawn on the question of deaths in Ashraf, saying he would await on a report from his commanders.
