Iraq, June 1, Reuters - The drums of war are beating on the Iraq-Iran border, where an August 1988 ceasefire looks increasingly fragile.
At eight in the morning, at a parade ground within view of the Iranian plateau, a disciplined army of Iranian exiles is drilling to the rousing music of the Mujahideen Khalq movement.
"Fire!" shout the ranks of men and women, Kalashnikovs at their shoulders, at the climax of a fighting song called "Massoud's Order" - after Mujahideen leader Massoud Rajavi....
"We have gained much experience in the latest fighting and we are preparing for bigger battles in the future," said operations officer Ali Akbar Anbaz.
"Our strategy is a war of liberation to overthrow the Khomeini regime by armed force. We believe we have the capability to destroy their armed forces," added camp commander Hossein Abrishamchi....
The Mujahideen say the size of their army is a military secret but published reports have estimated its strength at between 40,000 and 100,000 men....
The street names [in the camp] are in Farsi and English, not in Arabic, and all the vehicles carry distinctive green number plates showing they are exempt from customs duty.
It has workshops for Soviet-made T-55 and British-built Chieftain tanks and U.S.-made M-113 and Soviet-made BMP-1 armoured personnel carriers, staffed by mechanics trained in Britain, the United States or in the Iranian armed forces.
Nasir Mahabadi, who studied electrical engineering at California State University and then ran a towing service in Valencia, California, said he joined the army because he was fed up with "those people ruling my country...."