CAMP ASHRAF (Iraq): Iraqi forces early on Friday stormed an Iranian exile camp that Iraq’s government has tried to close for years, and both sides reported casualties in the raid.

The exiles said as many as 31 residents at Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s northeastern Diyala province were killed, while the Iraqi general who ordered the offensive vehemently denied any fatalities. US and UN officials in Baghdad were unable to immediately verify how many people were killed or injured.

A hospital official in Baqouba, Diyala’s capital, said 10 people were killed and 16 wounded in the clashes. Five Iraqi soldiers and one policeman also were injured, said the official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Smoke was still billowing from security checkpoints leading into the camp hours after the Iraqi army seized them from the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, which has for years dogged Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Troops refused to let a reporter near where the clashes took place, and ordered him out of the camp after briefly being allowed in through the main gate, even though government and military officials insisted they had not taken over the settlement.

However, Iraqi Lt Gen Ali Ghaidan, who ordered the pre-dawn incursion, said soldiers have seized land in the camp’s northeast section and intend to give it to Iraqi farmers. He said that land is nowhere near the exile’s homes.

“Everything is normal inside the camp,” Ghaidan said in an interview on Friday afternoon. “Our troops are outside, and we are not near the residential areas. Everything is stable.”

Ashraf resident Shahriar Kia said that was not true and described an ongoing standoff between the exiles and soldiers on either end of the camp’s main street.

“They have attacked our homes and looted them,” Kia said. “People are standing out on the street to protect their homes.”

Camp Ashraf and the Iranian exile group have long been a source of tension to Iraq’s Shiite-led government. Al-Maliki has sought to remove the group because of its past ties to former dictator Saddam Hussein. Iran, a close ally of Baghdad, has also been pressing for the expulsion of the group, which seeks the overthrow of Tehran’s clerical rulers.

Ghaidan said he ordered the incursion to curb two days of exiles hurling stones at troops and throwing themselves in front of soldiers’ trucks. He said the uprising began after Iraqi troops began switching out military units that are stationed nearby.

Ghaidan and government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said five soldiers were wounded in Friday’s clashes. Al-Dabbagh said he was unaware if anyone on either side was killed, but said, “our forces did not use weapons.”

Al-Dabbagh also said the seized land was located outside the camp, and was merely being returned to the farmers who had owned it before the exiles moved in during Saddam Hussein’s regime.

“It is their land and we are allowing them to use it,” al-Dabbagh said.

Camp residents described a dire picture of the morning melee, and supplied a six-minute video purportedly taken early on Friday that showed military Humvees flying the Iraqi flag chasing down about 100 stone-throwing masked people in an open area.

At least one person in the crowd was seen hit by a Humvee, and an Iraqi soldier was seen firing from his AK-47 machine gun although his target was not clear. The video also shows at least six people lying on the ground, and a dozen of blood-soaked men being treated by doctors.

Kia said 31 exiles have been killed, including six women, and at least 325 wounded in the violence. His claim could not be immediately confirmed because access to the camp is restricted.

“This is a massacre, a catastrophe,” said Behzad Saffari, who has lived at Ashraf for nine years and acts as the camp’s legal adviser. “They came inside the camp and attacked people with grenades and tear gas, and then they started to shoot people. When people saw the attack was about to begin, they lined up to defend their homes.”

A spokeswoman for the UN mission in Baghdad, which monitors the Ashraf situation, said international observers were trying to get permission to enter Ashraf on Friday morning but were so far unsuccessful. Until then, the agency could not confirm any reports of fatalities, said spokeswoman Aicha el-Basri.

In Geneva, UN Human Rights spokesman Rupert Colville acknowledged the reports and urged Iraq’s government to “ensure there no more killings and no more casualties in this camp.”—AP