A camp for Iranian dissidents near Baghdad’s international airport was shelled on Monday, a spokesman of the opposition People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) said.
The bombardment caused casualties among residents of the camp, PMOI spokesman Shahriar Kia told Reuters, without indicating a number. Several caravans in the camp were set on fire.
Kia said the group suspects that “Iraqi groups affiliated with the Iranian” government were responsible for the shelling.
A witness who lives near the airport heard 20 to 30 explosions that a security source said was a bombardment targeting the secured perimeter of the airport where the camp is located. It was not clear if any of the airport’s facilities were hit. Kia said more than 50 mortar rounds hit the camp.
The PMOI sided with former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein during Iran’s war with Iraq in the 1980s but fell out of favour with Baghdad after he was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
The PMOI has since come under attack several times in Iraq.
Its camp near the airport was previously shelled in October.
Baghdad is already reeling from double bombings on Sunday that killed at least 157 people.