TEHRAN, April 15 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - U.S. and British jets struck bases in Iraq housing fighters of the People's Mujahedeen (MKO), the main Iranian armed opposition group, a spokesman for the British embassy in Tehran told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Tuesday, April 15.

"Coalition forces attacked more than one MKO camps in Iraq," said Andrew Greenstock, without indicating when the attacks took place.

"The MKO is not only a terrorist organisation according to Britain, but they were also part of the Iraqi armed forces, which constituted obstacles to the U.S.-led operation in Iraq," Greenstock claimed.

The People's Mujahedeen was instrumental in the overthrow of the shah of Iran in 1979 but was later forced out of the country by the then Iranian regime and set up camp in Iraq, where it boasts several bases and thousands of fighters.

During the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, the group won recognition from Baghdad as the government of Iran.

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States the group was tagged a terrorist organisation by Washington and the European Union, an allegation it strongly denies, saying it is a legitimate resistance movement.

The group professed neutrality in the U.S.-led war against Saddam Hussein's regime and denies assisting it.

Mujahedeen Stranded In The Desert

In the meantime, more than 70 members of the MKO, including a prominent Iranian singer, have been stuck for more than 48 hours in no man's land on Jordan's border with Iraq, an official with an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) said Tuesday.

"More than 70 Mujahedeen who carry refugee cards from France, Germany, Canada and the United States are stranded in the desert two kilometres (one and a quarter miles) from Jordan's Al-Karama border post," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Among them is singer Ashraf Sadat Mortezai, 77, known by the stage name "Marieh," who defected in 1994 and joined the People's Mujahedeen during a public rally in Paris, and Ali Mostashari, a political science professor at a Paris university, the official said.

Diplomatic sources meanwhile told AFP they were waiting for lists concerning these people.

"Twenty-eight of these Iranians claim to have French refugee documents but we are not sure that these documents are valid and we cannot verify them until the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) provides us with lists," one source told AFP.

"Sending them back to Iran is out of the question but unless we can verify the lists we cannot know whether or not they are political refugees in France," the source said.

On Sunday, April 13, the UNHCR urged the Jordanian authorities to allow those blocked at the border to be transferred on a temporary basis to a refugee camp set up in Rweished, the Jordanian border town near Al-Karama.

A Jordanian official said Tuesday the authorities were first waiting for a commitment from the embassies concerned that they will take the necessary measures to repatriate these refugees, before allowing them into the country.

A spokesman for the People's Mujahedeen, Ali Safavi, told AFP, "these are Iranian refugees who have gone to Iraq to visit their families and also the (Shiite) holy shrines at Najaf and Karbala.

"These refugees, who are supporters of the Mujahedeen and the Iranian resistance, have political refugee status in different European countries.

"They intended to return to their countries of residence before the outbreak of war but could not do so.