The military and cult bastion of the terrorist MKO is nearing the end of its days as one of the most controversial spots in Iraq. The last remaining group of the members, a total of 100, will be forced out sooner or later and leaves the camp in the hands of the local authority in Diyala Province. The province’s administration has unveiled a recent judicial decision by Baghdad courts to empty Camp Ashraf and hand it over to the local administration who have announced on several occasions the intention to turn it into a tourist attraction and a large commercial exchange center between the Kurdistan region of Iraq and Baghdad.
In a latest press conference, Uday AlKhadran, Khalis Mayor, told that an Iraqi court has transferred the authority of the site to the local administration of Khalis which plans to build a mall in there once all MKO terrorists are expelled from the Camp.
“The Camp of New Iraq (Ashraf) still accommodates 100 members of the MKO members, and the rest have already been transferred at the order of the UN to the transient facility in Camp Liberty in Northern Baghdad during the last year in preparation for housing them in other countries”. He further pointed to “the suspicious political activities of Ashraf residents who refused to sell the property of Camp Ashraf in accordance with their earlier agreement with the Iraqi government, despite receiving attractive offers from Iraqi and foreign traders and companies”.
It has to be pointed out that not all the claimed properties and assets in Camp Ashraf have a function of legal and civil purpose and many of the vehicles, instruments and machineries allocated to the group by the ousted dictator belong to Iraqi army and people living in the vicinity. In fact, the group brought nothing when it came to Iraq and all it claims to possess is out of the bundles of dollars Saddam allocated to it from the pocket of the Iraqi people when they needed the sums more than any other time.
Since the fall of Saddam, the Iraqi lawyers have filed complaints on behalf of Iraqi people and particularly by farmers living in Diyala province whose crop lands have been occupied by the group. In fact, the closure of Camp Ashraf was a legal demand by the Iraqi government and the local people, to whom the lands belong. Naturally, MKO as the occupier is reluctant to return what it had seized under the direct order of the ousted Saddam.