Rebuilding of bombed Iraqi shrine to begin next month: United Nations
BAGHDAD (AFP) — The UN's culture body said on Saturday that work would begin next month on rebuilding a Shiite shrine whose destruction in a bombing last year unleashed a wave of bitter sectarian violence across Iraq.
"Reconstruction of the Al-Askari Shrine in Samarra shall start after the end of Ramadan (mid-October) and preparations and training have been completed," UNESCO's Mohammed Jalil told a press conference in Baghdad.
The mosque was severely damaged by a February 2006 attack by Sunni extremists that brought down its famed Golden Dome. It was hit again on June 13 this year in a follow-up attack which toppled two minarets.
The first bombing sparked Shiite reprisals that led to a bitter vendetta between rival sectarian factions which in turn led to Iraq's collapse into a generalised civil conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Jalil said that a Turkish company would begin six to eight months of preparatory reconstruction work after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ends around the middle of October.
All the work would be done by Samarra residents with expertise coming from Turkish and Iraqi engineers trained by UNESCO, he said.
"The government will be responsible for providing security for the company through deployment of the army outside the city and the police inside," he added.
The Iraqi government signed a multi-million dollar deal with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation to rebuild the revered Shiite mosque in the northern city back in June.
Haq al-Hakim, an aide of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, told the press conference that the Iraqi leader had ordered the project to be speeded up.
Many Shiite leaders had criticised Maliki's government for the delay in reconstructing the shrine after the 2006 attack, in particular radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
