Iraq: Workers take first steps to reconstruct Samarra mosque
Baghdad, 08 February 2008 (Associated Press)
raqi and UN officials toured a bomb-damaged Shiite shrine in northern Iraq on Thursday as workers took the first steps in a long-delayed reconstruction - nearly two years after the attack on the famed golden dome sparked a vicious cycle of sectarian violence.
Workers in blue jumpsuits and orange helmets picked through mounds of rubble spilling out from the mosque in Samarra, about 95 kilometres north of Baghdad, which became a rallying point for Shiite rage after the February 22, 2006 blast blamed on Al Qaida in Iraq.
Relentless bloodletting between Shiite and Sunni extremists claimed tens of thousands of lives and lurched Iraq dangerously close to civil war. A second bomb attack this year on June 13 toppled the surviving twin minarets, prompting Shiite clerics to step up calls for the reconstruction of the Askariya shrine. The complex contains the tombs of two ninth century imams who were descendants of the Prophet Mohammad, and Shiites consider them to be among his successors.
An envoy for Iraq’s Shiite-led government, Haq Al Hakim, described the $16 million [about Dh58.7 million] rebuilding effort as a symbol of national unity at a time when violence is decreasing across most of Iraq.
But the morgue count Wednesday showed how quickly bloodshed can return. Iraqi police reported at least 30 people killed or found dead around the country, including eight beheaded bodies found in the volatile Diyala province northeast of the capital. It was one of the highest daily tolls in weeks.
US-backed Sunni fighters also came under attack. Gunmen ambushed a member of a so-called Awakening Council in the Salahuddin province, killing him and three bodyguards.
Roadside bomb
The attack came hours after a roadside bomb struck an Awakening Council in the same province, killing one of the militiamen who have joined the battled against Al Qaida in Iraq.
In Samarra, workers wiped off tiles and welded metal bars as the delegation surveyed the site. Nearly three dozen checkpoints have been erected to protect the workers, who began the reconstruction project on Monday.
“The situation is not easy. We know that there have been delays due to the security situation and preparations,” Mohammad Djelid, the head of the Iraqi branch of the UN cultural agency Unesco, told AP Television News.
“It is not an ordinary building project.”