Visitors crowded into the mausoleum at the thousand-year-old Al-Askari mosque in Samarra, whose famous golden dome was destroyed by Al-Qaeda bombers in 2006 and further damaged in June 2007.
"We took the initiative to open up the mausoleum to hundreds of Samarra residents who came to visit," said General Raad al-Tamimi, head of police in the city to the north of Baghdad.
Security forces using loudspeakers announced on Tuesday that the mausoleum, housing the remains of imams Ali al-Hadi and Hassan al-Askari and which was built around the ninth century, was to be opened for six hours.
"We deployed our troops to protect the site and thankfully everything went well," Tamimi said.
The two distinctive minarets of the Al-Askari shrine were destroyed in the second bombing in June last year.
The mosque has been closed since the attack on February 22, 2006 .
source : AFP
Monday
15 June 2009
7:30:00 PM
116280
Hundreds of Muslim worshippers on Wednesday visited a revered Shiite shrine in northern Iraq that is being rebuilt after a deadly bomb blast which triggered bitter sectarian bloodshed.