WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department is warning an Iran opposition group that time is running short to vacate an encampment inside Iraq.
Daniel Benjamin, the department's coordinator for counterterrorism, said Friday that the group, known as the Mujahadin-e-Khalq, should not assume that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will decide to remove the group from the U.S. terrorism list. She is under court order to make a decision by October.
Nearly 2,000 members of the group have made the move out of Camp Ashraf, but Benjamin said that 1,200 to 1,300 remain. None have left since early May, and the Iraqi government has set a July 20 deadline for them to vacate Ashraf entirely.
He says completing the relocation will be a "key factor" in Clinton's decision.
