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Scud missiles hit MKO camp in Iraq

BAGHDAD, June 11 (AFP) - Several Scud missiles crashed Thursday into a military base in Iraq of the People's Mujahedeen, the main armed Iranian opposition group said, accusing the Tehran regime.

A spokesman for the Mujahedeen said the Scud-B missiles hit the Ashraf base, 110 kilometres (65 miles) northeast of Baghdad, near the border with Iran.

He gave no details of casualties and said damage was being evaluated.

"Several Scuds hit Ashraf base at 8:30 p.m. (1630 GMT) and several explosions followed," said spokesman Farid Sulaimani.

Mujahedeen leader Massud Rajavi sent an urgent message to UN chief Kofi Annan calling for "an end to these aggressions."

He accused Iran of violating a Security Council resolution, which ended the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, by launching missiles, Sulaimani said.

Scuds also landed on the base a few years ago causing material damage. The group blamed Tehran for that attack.

The missiles struck just hours after six Mujahedeen fighters killed along with an Iraqi civilian in a truck bombing were laid to rest at the base.

Both the Baghdad government and the Mujahedeen blamed the Tehran government for the truck bombing attack.

The seven were blown up Wednesday on the edge of Baghdad in the deadliest attack on the group inside Iraq since 1986, which also wounded 21 Mujahedeen combatants and 15 Iraqi civilians.

Six coffins were carried through a packed crowd of Iranian fighters and Iraqis and into the Ashraf base aboard six vehicles.

Tanks, troop transporters and field guns were lined up along the road into the camp, 110 kilometres (65 miles) northeast of Baghdad and near the border with Iran.

A pick-up truck exploded 15 kilometres (nine miles) north of the capital as the fighters were being bussed to Ashraf camp. An Iraqi on a bus on the other side of the road was also killed and 15 others hurt.

The pick-up was loaded with almost 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of explosives, a Mujahedeen munitions expert told AFP.

The group's spokesman blamed "terrorists sent by the Iranian regime" for the attack, which came two months after the group assassinated a top general outside his home in Tehran.

The Mujahedeen said in a statement that it "reserves its own right to respond and its legitimate right to defend its combatants against the attacks of the clerical regime."

The attack was the 24th by Iranian agents since moderate cleric Mohammad Khatami was elected Iran's president in May 1997, according to the Mujahedeen, and the 75th in the last six years.

After the bombing, Rajavi called on the United Nations "to take urgent measures to halt the crimes of the mullahs outside Iran" and urged Baghdad to close down the Iranian embassy.

The Mujahedeen, which has been based in Iraq since 1986 and mounts cross-border raids, regularly accuses Iran of attacks. Two bombs exploded near its Baghdad headquarters on Saturday, without causing casualties, it said.

At a Baghdad meeting in mid-May, the Mujahedeen leadership set a target of May 2001 for the overthrow of the Tehran government.

The Mujahedeen's deployment in Iraq, where it has five military bases, is a key obstacle to a normalisation in ties between Baghdad and Tehran, which fought a war between 1980 and 1988.

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