Iraqi troops replace US troops taking over responsibility for protecting terrorist group

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http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2008/August/middleeast_August552.xml§ion=middleeast

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi army has replaced American troops in securing a refugee camp north of Baghdad where members of Iran's main armed opposition group are grouped, Iraq's defence ministry said on Saturday.

"Iraqi forces have taken over responsibility from US forces to protect Ashraf camp," ministry spokesman General Mohammed al-Askari told AFP.

"Our forces have deployed to protect this camp, not to seize it as recent rumours have alleged," Askari added.

Nearly 4,000 members of the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) fled to Iraq in the 1980s and settled at Ashraf camp, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Baghdad, which the group now uses as its headquarters.

Opponents of the Iran government and wary of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whom they consider too close to Tehran, the future of the PMOI in Iraq is uncertain and Maliki has said he is looking for ways to end their presence.

The group is on the European Union's list of terrorist organisations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze, and has been designated by the US government as a foreign terrorist organisation.