The Iraqi government announced Monday (July 16th) the start of a campaign to reconstruct churches that were damaged in terrorist operations.
"The government has referred the project to the Ministry of Housing and Reconstruction to rebuild churches and monasteries, including old historical churches in Anbar, Mosul, Baghdad, Basra, al-Samawa, Tikrit and Kirkuk," said Salam al-Quraishi, the government's economic advisor.
The reconstruction project will cost 32 billion dinars ($27.4 million).
Al-Quraishi said the campaign coincides with the security forces' completion of a strategy intended to prevent terrorist attacks against places of worship in Iraq.
The government will start rebuilding the churches of Mar Kourkis, Holy Family, Mar Youssef, Mar Akhdam, the al-Rahbaniyya Monastery in Baghdad, the Virgin Mary Church and other Catholic, Protestant and Roman churches in Anbar, Ninawa and Kirkuk, he said.
Work began on these sites first due to their historical importance and because the amount of destruction incurred means it will take longer to rebuild, al-Quraishi said.
He added that the churches would be handed over to church leaders by Christmas.
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ADD A COMMENT (COMMENT POLICY) * DENOTES REQUIRED FIELD
READER COMMENTS
basim
2012-7-17
The Iraqi government can confront terrorism by the fact that it should unify all of its forces in order to prevent these brutal and murderous groups from choosing terrorism or supporting it as a means for them to execute their activities or plots, and the Iraqi government should step up its efforts against terrorism and the terrorists, and it should also step up the principle of not allowing the justification of terrorism, and not allowing it at all in Iraq. And it has to work, and the Iraqis too have to work at the same time, to address the bad circumstances that could be exploited by terrorists, and all the Iraqis know as well as the government that a number of extremist terrorist groups have come to Iraq, and they have failed as a result of the dwindling financial and technical support, which these extremist terrorists groups were getting from their supporters and the enemies of Iraq, whether they be within Iraq or abroad, and of course, these financiers have many ambitions regarding Iraq, and all the Iraqis need to put the nails in the coffin of terrorism and their scourge and the scourge of their closest supporters, and cause them to fight each other, and the Iraqis as well as the Iraqi government need to prevent the moderate and respectable people from becoming extremist activists in these brutal and extremist groups, and the government should stand in the way of extremist activists becoming terrorists in these groups, and as such, if the Iraqis cooperate with each other and with the government, the era of terrorism will come to an end in Iraq.
صفاء عطا
2012-7-17
Who’s benefiting from these terrorist crimes and attacks which take place constantly and always in Iraq, and these crimes and attack could have a slight sectarian undertone to them, and always it’s the innocent Muslims that are accused of this, and the victims are innocent Iraqi civilians and others. Of course, the same countries occupying Iraq could consecrate itself and strengthen their position in Iraq in all of the countries in the Middle East, which are sad over these brutal, murderous terrorist attacks that are taking place. Also, these occupying countries have occupied all the Arab countries also intellectually in order to create these crimes and devastating attacks against innocent civilians, and which could cause a wave of sectarian clashes among the ethnic groups in Iraq, which could be in extreme danger and in a very difficult and strange manner. This is happening in all the regions of the Arab world, and how all the perpetrators of these violent crimes and misguided terrorist attacks which we do not know anything about to this day, and we cannot even get to know them or even continue to carry out investigations about them or their identities, regardless of who they are, or whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims. These are the acts and behavior of terrorists in Iraq, which could present us with two forms of terrorism: the first one is terrorism of the state of Iraq, including all the governments and peoples, and also on the international level, and also on the level of the Arab governments in the Arab world as a whole, and it is government corruption.
بهاء الاعرجي
2012-7-17
Iraq has been exposed to so much attrition and exploitation in the past time and destruction and ruin controlled its land by the hands of many enemy powers which didn’t feel any guilt and did not hesitate to destroy the great country of Iraq, it made it all ashes and wreckage and shed seas of innocent helpless people blood. The enemies gathered and made chains of destruction and ruin over the sister Iraqi land, they didn’t leave nothing owns life or even symbolizes it without destroying it, destruction became the master and ruler of the place.