ISIL militants destroy Shi’ite religious shrines in Iraq

Rasa – Historical and cultural artefacts housed by Shi’a shrines were stolen, says Iraqi official.

News ID: 2012

Date: 13 January 2015 - 19:57

ISIL militants have destroyed over a dozen shrines belonging to Shi’ites in Iraq, an Iraqi official said on Friday.

Abbas Sa’idi, the secretary general in charge of state-run Shi’ite shrines, said the group reduced to ruins a total of 17 shrines, four of which were in Mosul, with the others located in Diyala, Kirkuk and Salahuddin provinces.

The militant group, which controls parts in Iraq and Syria, destroyed Shi’ite community-affiliated worship places and congregation halls known as Husayniyah, Sa’idi said.

“ISIL’s attitude towards Islam’s holy values is an ideology that is far away from Islam,” the secretary general said, deeming the militant group’s acts to be “contrary to the holy Quran.”

Sa’idi said the destroyed shrines had historic and cultural value as well as religious ones. He claimed they housed 600-year-old swords and spears along with valuable artefacts.

“All of them were stolen from the bombed shrines,” Sa’idi told Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.

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