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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday said that his government will do everything in its power to protect revered Shi’ite Muslim shrines in Iraq from Sunni militant fighters combating the Baghdad government.
“Dear Karbala, Dear Najaf, Dear Kadhimiyah and Dear Samarra, we warn the great powers and their lackeys and the terrorists, the great Iranian people will do everything to protect them”, he said, speaking at Khorramabad near the Iraqi border. On Saturday, Rouhani had promised to help Iraq’s Prime Minister Muri al-Maliki and his government if they had asked for help; at the time, the Iraqi government had made no such request.
During his speech, Rouhani made note of petitions signed by citizens of Iran who are willing to fight in Iraq “to destroy the terrorists and protect the holy sites” visited annually by over hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from Iran. “Thank God there are enough volunteers Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq to fight the terrorists”, he added.
Iranians pledged to volunteer in Iraq after top Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called on them to resist the extremist assault led by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL); the militants hold the cities of Tikrit and Mosul, and are currently fighting north of capital Baghdad.
Iran is 90% Shi’ite – Maliki, a Shi’ite, was in exile in Iran when Dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab, was in power in Iraq. ISIL considers Shi’ites as apostates. Major Shi’ite shrines in Iraq, Karbala and Najaf are in the districts of Samarra and Kadhimiyah. Militants have repeatedly tried to enter the shrine, but have so far been unsuccessful. Around 50,000 citizens of Iran had pledged online to defend the Shi’ite shrine in Iraq against the Sunni militants.