The U.S. condemned a rocket and mortar attack on a refugee camp for Iranian exiles next to Baghdad's international airport that killed six people and wounded about 40 yesterday, Bloomberg reported.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denounced the assault yesterday, according to a statement on the UN website. Both he and the U.S. urged Iraqi officials to investigate and find those responsible.
"The United States condemns in the strongest terms the vicious and senseless terrorist attack," Victoria Nuland, U.S. State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement on the agency's website. "The terrorists responsible for this attack must be brought to justice."
Al-Mukhtar army, the military wing of the Iraqi Hezbollah movement, claimed responsibility for the assault, the Middle East News Agency reported, citing a statement issued by the Iraqi militia. The country's government said it had started an investigation into the incident, and that there is little it can do to protect the camp from rocket fire, the Associated Press reported. About 3,100 people live in the compound, according to the news agency.
The camp is home to members of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, the militant wing of a Paris-based Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, according to the Associated Press. Iraq's Shiite-led pro-Iranian government considers MEK a terrorist group, the AP reported.