At least 17 people from Canada are under U.S. guard at a camp in Iraq after an American crackdown against a shadowy militant group that has vowed to overthrow the government of neighbouring Iran.

Foreign Affairs officials said last night they had not determined the status of the men and women who are among 3,800 members of the People's Mujahedeen under U.S. guard in the organization's camp at Ashraf, about 200 kilometres north of Baghdad.

 

Those linked to Canada include citizens and permanent residents, said Ottawa immigration lawyer Warren Creates, who represents the 17. At least six are women.

The group, also known as the Mujahedeen Khalq, was put under a kind of "protective custody" by U.S. forces in early December, Mr. Creates said.

The move was made after the group made a deal with the Pentagon to turn over its arms to U.S. troops to avoid being treated as terrorists.

But Iraqi authorities have indicated the group could be deported to Iran, Mr. Creates said. Supporters in Canada say they could face imprisonment and torture or worse. The U.S.-appointed civilian administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has reportedly said the group would be resettled in third countries, not Iraq or Iran.

Mr. Creates said there are concerns about how the group will be treated by the U.S. forces and where they will be sent, although at the moment, relations between the Mujahedeen and their captors are positive, he said, with some even playing soccer with the U.S. troops.

"We want them to be treated as civilian non-combatants, and as such, subject to the full protections they are entitled to under international law," Mr. Creates said. "The first step is to make sure they are not returned to Iran."

Yesterday, Mr. Creates said supporters of the detained men made presentations to Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs, meetings that the lawyer said were positive.

Supporters of the group also demonstrated at the headquarters of the Red Cross in Ottawa and at the U.S. embassy.

Canadian authorities are checking with U.S. officials about the status of the individuals in question, said Reynald Doiron, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs. The People's Mujahedeen was listed as a terrorist entity in Canada in November, 2001, he said. The People's Mujahedeen, also known as the Mujahedeen Khalq, was founded by radical university students in Tehran in the early 1960s in opposition to Western influence under Shah Reza Pahlavi. From the outset, the group advocated the use of violence. It fought against the shah, and then later against the government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomaini's Islamic Republic. In the 1980s, the U.S. government backed the group after efforts at rapprochement with Iran failed. This, despite the Mujahedeen's explicitly anti-Western actions, including the assassination of U.S. military personnel and civilians in Tehran.

Then the People's Mujahedeen went to Iraq, throwing its lot in with Saddam Hussein, believing the Islamic Republic would soon fall and they would march into Tehran. The Iraqi leader backed them as a good way to destabilize his Iranian enemies and absorbed officers into his elite Republican Guard. An attack on Iran — launched after the Iran-Iraq war ended in 1988 — failed miserably. Mr. Creates acknowledged that the group had launched attacks against Iranian military targets, but said it was not now a militant group, having surrendered its weapons to the United States.