December 27-2013
US intelligence believes the 52 members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq killed in September at Camp Ashraf were murdered by Iraqis hired and paid by the Qods Force of the Pasdaran.
Foreign Policy magazine reported last Wednesday on its website that three US intelligence officials whom it did not name had told it the killers were from the Kitaib Hezbollah and the Asaib Ahl al-Haq, two militia bands in Iraq that have been funded and paid by Iran.
The Mojahedin-e Khalq have accused the Iraqi military of carrying out the attack on behalf of the Islamic Republic
Still, it appeared likely that the Iraqi Armed Force, which had troops stationed around what was then Camp Ashraf, must have acquiesced in the attack, since they had refused to allow reporters and others who approached Camp Ashraf to enter.
Seven Mojahedin members were missing after the attack. The group has accused Iraq of kidnaping them. The Foreign Policy report said its sources believed the Iraqi militias had taken those seven to Iran.
Videos released by the Mojahedin-e Khalq showed that many of the dead had been shot with their hands tied behind their backs.
“Iraqi soldiers didn’t get in the way of what was happening at Ashraf, but they didn’t do the shooting,” one US official briefed on the intelligence community’s assessment of the attack said in an interview.
The seven missing Moja-hedin members haven’t been seen or heard from since the attack.
Foreign Policy said, “Direct Iranian involvement in the Ashraf assault is one of the clearest signs yet of Tehran’s growing power within Iraq, a dynamic of deep concern to American policy-makers.”
It said US officials believe Tehran prodded Maliki to refuse to sign a bilateral security pact in the fall of 2010 that would have kept some US troops in the country. Iran has publicly urged Afghanistan not to sign a similar troop agreement with Washington.
The timing of the attack raises questions about whether Iran’s security services are as committed to finding a rapprochement with Washington as the Rohani Administration. Ashraf was attacked three weeks after Hassan Rohani took office.
The timing suggests to some that elements within the Tehran regime are trying to upset the applecart.
Foreign Policy said Mojahedin leaders in Washington strongly disagreed with the US conclusions about the Ashraf attack. They said Ashraf was guarded by fences, checkpoints and more than 1,200 Iraqi troops, making it extremely difficult for gunmen to reach the camp without, at a minimum, the acquiescence of Iraqi forces.
They also noted that survivors said the masked gunmen spoke Arabic and argued that the group’s own operatives within Iran would know if the seven missing members had been brought into the country. They believe that Tehran ordered the attack, but say that it was carried out by Iraqi soldiers loyal to Maliki.
“The repeated statements by US officials that Iraq has had no role in the September 1 massacre at Ashraf are only designed to exonerate the Iraqi prime minister and his senior officials from any responsibility in this manifest case of crime against humanity and to help him elude justice,” said Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance, a Mojahedin front group.
US officials, for their part, said the Iranian commandos could have used Arabic to mask their identities or stayed just outside the camp while the Iraqi gunmen carried out the assault. They also said the missing seven might have been executed shortly after being brought into Iran or imprisoned in secret facilities for interrogation. The Iraqi militiamen tabbed by US intelligence would have been Arabic speakers by definition.
At a congressional hearing in mid-November, Brett McGurk, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran, told lawmakers that the seven missing group members “are not in Iraq.”
Meanwhile, in Madrid, a Spanish court that is investigating the attack announced it has extended its probe to include Faleh al-Fayad, the security adviser to Prime Minister Maliki. Relatives of the victims had accused al-Fayad and also Maliki, but Judge Fernando Andreu said the prime minister enjoys judicial immunity.