The Iranian regime’s agents in Iraq, ordered by Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, conducted their first missile attack on Camp Liberty; the second home of Iranian Resistance group the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), on February 9, 2013. The barrage of missiles resulted in eight deaths and 100 MEK members being injured.
This was the first of a chain of missile attacks by the regime’s proxies on Camp Liberty, which was all the more horrific because the MEK had been moved to Camp Liberty because they were in danger from attacks by the regime at their first home Camp Ashraf. (After several deadly assaults, the US, United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), and the Iraqi government moved the MEK to Camp Liberty.)
Anniversary of the first missile attack on the MEK in Camp Liberty, Iraq#Iranhttps://t.co/iHBXWBzM6v
— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) February 9, 2020
No one accepted responsibility for these attacks, but the MEK discovered that Khamenei had ordered the attack and that the Iraqi government had cooperated.
The MEK said: “Launching a barrage of missiles on a protected location such as Baghdad International Airport was impossible without the cooperation of the Iraqi government and security forces. The attack also showed the scale of the Iranian regime’s influence on the governmental apparatuses in Iraq, though they had made this country as a vassal of the mullahs.”
Days after the attack, on February 14, the MEK held a remembrance service where Resistance leader Maryam Rajavi called on the US and Europe to pressure the Iraqi government to respect the human rights of the residents of Camp Liberty.
While MEK supporters in Iran, including political prisoners, also condemned the attack, held ceremonies in homage to the martyrs, and put up posters of the martyrs on walls in several cities, including Tehran.
On February 18, 2013, four US congressmen attended a conference in Paris and severely condemned the attack on Camp Liberty. There, Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, accused Iraq of breaking its promise to help protect the 3,100 refugees who lived in Camp Liberty.
In a warning to the government of then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, he said: “Put everybody on notice — and I think I speak for our whole delegation. … If there is another attack on these helpless refugees by the government, obviously cleared by the government of Iraq, we will move in the United States Congress and put forward a resolution not only just condemning the act but declaring Prime Minister Maliki and his government state sponsors of terrorism.”
