Commander of Iraqi battalion responsible for Ashraf protection, Iraqi army intelligence officers collaborate with Tehran's intelligence agents in psychological torture of Ashraf residents
NCRI – Reports sent by the Iranian regime's embassy in Baghdad to the terrorist Quds Force and the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) reveal that Iraqi Prime Minister’s office and the Iraqi Army battalion stationed at Ashraf are cooperating fully with the MOIS agents camped out at Ashraf’s main gate.
According to these reports, the Commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 37th Brigade of the 9th Division of the Iraqi Army and the battalion's chain of command, supposedly responsible for protection of Ashraf residents, are providing logistical support to the MOIS agents posing as families of Ashraf residents ever since they were brought to the gates of Ashraf on February 8, 2010.
In the past two months, the battalion commander Colonel Latif Abdol-Amir Hashem Al-Enavi, has been assisting the MOIS agents, personally arranging for everything they need. His deputy, two officers of the Iraqi Army's intelligence branch and two other army officers are also helping them. Col. Al-Enavi has assigned two officers to ensure that these agents are fully satisfied and have everything at their disposal.
The battalion provides them with loudspeakers, drums and cymbals among other things. It also arranges the agents' transportation between their residence, the regime's embassy in Baghdad, and Camp Ashraf as well as their trips to and from Iran. Three of the battalion's vehicles and their drivers are allocated to these agents. Under the instructions of the battalion commander, these vehicles are well maintained.
A unit from the battalion consisting of three Humvees, tasked with providing protection, takes position at Ashraf main gate every morning before the MOIS agents arrive. This unit protects the agents throughout the day while they go on shouting and insulting Ashraf residents and threaten them with death.
The battalion prepares special meals for the agents and must comply with their requests or face reprimands. Former chef and his assistant who prepared food for the battalion commander along with another personnel working at the officers’ canteen, have been assigned to prepare food for these agents and respond to their needs.
A contractor has been employed by the battalion to purchase the needs of the agents from Baghdad. The agents receive everything free of charge.
In recent days, on the orders of the committee for the suppression of Ashraf, the battalion has installed a number of new trailers at the camp's entrance to expand the agent’s stay. The battalion commander, intelligence and operations officers, company commanders and personnel in charge of repair and transportation have stopped their daily duties to install the trailers as soon as possible.
The personnel and soldiers have become disgruntled over the fact that so much energy and facilities are allocated to these agents. But the battalion commander and intelligence officers have tried to suppress dissent through fear and intimidation.
For the past 70 days the agents have been threatening the residents of Ashraf with death and setting fire to Camp Ashraf, while shouting “Death to Mojahedin (PMOI/MEK)” and “long live the Islamic Republic” through amplifiers and loudspeakers. They have been receiving support from the office of Iraqi Prime Minister and the Iraqi battalion systematically and comprehensively. They are trying to instigate tension and skirmishes with the camp's residents through their actions and the use of obscene and profane language. They have also disrupted the residents’ peace and tranquility, especially patients in the hospital near the main gate of Ashraf.
These agents openly admit that they have been assigned by Nejat Association (a branch of MOIS) to go to Ashraf and will remain there until Ashraf is destroyed and all its residents are expelled (video clip of their threats are available).
These measures are clear examples of psychological and systematic torture which are preparing the grounds for another assault on Ashraf residents who are protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Those responsible as well as the perpetrators of these criminal actions can be prosecuted because they are violating many conventions as well as the international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention and ‘The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.’
There is no dispute that the commanders of the Iraqi battalion and officials of the committee responsible for the suppression of Ashraf are directly complicit in the psychological torture of Ashraf residents. Last November, the Spanish National Court commenced an investigation aimed at prosecuting the Iraqi officials who were responsible for the July 28-29 attacks on Ashraf and for violating the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
April 15, 2010