At least 150 people were wounded in clashes on Tuesday when the Iraqi army stormed the base for Iran's main armed opposition in exile, security officials and a camp resident said, AFP reported.
The seizure of Camp Ashraf, which was disarmed by the United States in 2003 and surrounded by American forces until recently, comes after months of a tense stand-off at the base north of Baghdad.
The offensive followed a statement by the People's Mujahedeen that it was ready to return to Iran if the authorities there would guarantee its members would not be abused.
"After the failure of negotiations with the Mujahedeen to enter peacefully, the Iraqi army entered Camp Ashraf with force and it now controls all of the interior and all entrances to the camp," an Iraqi military source said.
The operation coincided with a visit to Iraq by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates but the top US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, said the US military had no advance warning.
A police official said around 100 people were injured when riot police called in by the army to quell unrest in the camp began beating residents.
Shahriar Kia, a spokesman for the People's Mujahedeen, said the injury toll was around 150 and that two people had been shot. It was unclear how many people were seriously wounded.
About 50 members of Iraq's security forces were also wounded, 20 seriously, the police official said, adding that 50 camp residents were detained.
"We are so worried that they (Iraqi security forces) might take the people arrested to the Iranian regime and hand them over," Kia said by telephone from Camp Ashraf.
The police source said residents were throwing bricks at Iraqi security forces, while riot police were beating Ashraf residents with sticks.
A company of US soldiers had overseen the camp until handing over control three months ago to Iraqi security forces as part of a drawdown of American troops, Odierno said.
"We didn't know they we're going do this," he told reporters in Baghdad.
The Iraqi authorities had pledged to the Americans previously that they "would deal with the MEK (People's Mujahedeen) in a humane fashion," he said.
"That's what we've been watching and so far they've been abiding by that," the general said, adding that there were US observers on the scene.
Camp Ashraf is located in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, and is home to around 3,500 Mujahedeen supporters and their families. It was set up in the 1980s when now executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was in power and at war with Iran as a base to operate against the Iranian government.
The People's Mujahedeen said in a statement that Iraq police had launched an attack on Ashraf by firing "pepper gas."
Police vehicles demolished the side fences and walls while police officers on foot forced their way into the camp, the Mujahedeen said.
"The Iranian Resistance holds the US forces responsible for protection of Ashraf residents and calls on the UN secretary general and all human rights organisations to intervene immediately to stop attack by Iraqi forces."
An Iraqi army spokesman in Diyala said two battalions of 400 soldiers each plus 200 riot police took part in Tuesday's operation, which was ordered by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office.
The camp was disarmed by US forces after the 2003 invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam and US troops had surrounded it until Iraqi forces took over responsibility earlier this year.
The Mujahedeen said it was ready to return to Iran, subject to conditions.
The group's leader Maryam Rajavi said in a statement the Iranian regime would have to pledge "not to arrest, torture, prosecute or restrict the freedom of expression" of residents of Camp Ashraf willing to return to Iran.
The Mujahedeen, which seeks to overthrow Iran's Islamic regime, is branded a terrorist organisation by the United States, while the European Union only removed it from its blacklist earlier this year.
It was founded in 1965 in opposition to the shah, but was sidelined by the rival clerical regime which took power in the 1979 Islamic revolution.
...