Iranian refugee camp in Iraq in jeopardy

Here is a story I want to bring to your attention, but am not sure what to say about it other than keep an eye on it.   From the Washington Times yesterday.

Trouble is brewing at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, where 3,500 members of the main Iranian opposition group the PMOI – the People’s Mujahideen of Iran – are based.

At Iran’s request, the Iraqi authorities, who took over protection of Ashraf from American troops in January, are now preventing medicine and fuel from reaching the inhabitants. Parts of Ashraf, including a dormitory for several hundred women, have been besieged since mid-March, and unarmed residents have been subjected to violence. Most journalists and Iraqi doctors are not allowed entry – neither are relatives of the PMOI nor women of any nationality.

These draconian measures were put into force by Iraq’s National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, a key ally of Iran, who says he wants to drive PMOI members out of Iraq. They also come two months after the European Union removed the PMOI from its terrorist list. Britain de-proscribed the group in 2008 after the Court of Appeal found that all the evidence showed it was “perverse” to classify the group as a terrorist organization.

The group remains on the U.S. blacklist, but in 2004 Washington recognized all PMOI members in Ashraf as “protected persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention, after determining that none of them could be charged with any crime under U.S. law. Under international law, an attempt to forcefully displace the population even inside Iraq would be tantamount to a war crime.

Americans have been protecting this camp and I asked in March if these Iranians are killed when we pull-out of Iraq will Obama be blamed?

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