Iraq strikes at Iranian camp

BAGHDAD - Iraqi troops and police carried out a bloody raid yesterday on the camp of an Iranian opposition group that the United States has long sheltered, marking the Iraqi government's boldest move since it declared its sovereignty a month ago and offering the latest sign that U.S. influence is waning as Iranian clout rises.

The operation in northern Iraq, which caught U.S. officials off guard, coincided with a visit by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, and analysts said it appeared designed to send a message of Iraqi independence.

The Mujaheddin-e-Khalq, or MEK, has supplied information about Iran's nuclear program to the United States, but the group has long been an irritant to Tehran, which has repeatedly asked the Iraqi government to expel MEK members. The way Baghdad deals with the group is widely seen as a bellwether of whether Iraq is swayed by Iran or by the United States.

U.S. officials have opposed a violent takeover of the camp, and the Iraqi government's willingness to carry out the raid while Gates was in the country startled American officials.

Gen. Ray Odierno, top U.S. commander in Iraq, said American officials did not oppose an assault on the camp as long as troops treated residents humanely. He said initial reports from Iraqi commanders indicated that their troops had not used lethal force. "We didn't know they were going to do this," Odierno said.

Kenneth Katzman, an Iraq expert at Congressional Research Service, called the raid "very serious" and said it was disturbing that it coincided with Gates' visit. "It suggests that as the Iraqi government is increasingly independent of the United States, it might use this freedom of action to 'settle scores' with its opponents," he said.

Residents of Camp Ashraf, home to more than 3,000 people, said in phone interviews that troops used batons, fire hoses, pepper spray, and sound grenades to plow through the hundreds-strong crowd. Group leaders said that four people were killed and at least 300 wounded. Their accounts could not be independently corroborated.

Photographs and video clips that camp residents e-mailed to reporters showed troops beating residents and the wounded being stitched up at a clinic.

Since the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities June 30, Iraqi commanders have acted with autonomy, and, in some areas, have actively sought to marginalize U.S. counterparts.

Iraqi officials said the operation's goal was to establish a police station in the camp, widely seen as the first step toward evicting residents. The government considers the group a cult with a terrorist past, and resorted to force after several failed attempts to take control of the camp, parliament member Ali al-Adeeb said.

The MEK's leader said late Monday that his group was willing to return to Iran. But the conditions he has demanded appeared unrealistic.

The U.S. military had maintained a presence at the camp since 2003, when the group, an erstwhile ally of Saddam Hussein, agreed to disarm. The MEK was founded in the 1960s by Marxist university students and morphed into a guerrilla organization. Because its members attacked U.S. citizens in Iran during the 1970s, the State Department labels the group a terrorist organization.