Iraq Foils Daesh Plot to Attack Holy Shrines, Ayatollah Sistani House

TEHRAN (IQNA) – Iraq has foiled a plot by the Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) terrorist group to carry out attacks against Shia shrines and the house of the most revered spiritual Shia leader in the country, an intelligence official said.

"The terrorist group Daesh was prepared for three separate operations led by terrorists from outside Iraq to attack the shrines of Shia Imams in the provinces of Karbala, Najaf and Samarra, and the residency of the top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf,” the state-owned al-Sabah newspaper quoted Abu Ali al-Basri, the head of intelligence apparatus of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), as saying.

The group also intended to attack a mosque in the town of Kufa near Najaf and some crowded areas in the oil-hub city of Basra in southern Iraq, with the objective of igniting sectarian strife between the Shia and Sunni Muslims, according to al-Basri.

"The attacks had been designed to be carried out by car bombers and dozens of suicide bombers of different nationalities in cooperation with gangs of smuggling to facilitate the entry of weapons and suicide bombers into the targeted provinces,” he said.

The intelligence information was presented to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of Iraqi forces, and to the Interior Minister Qassim al-Aaraji, to get the orders to carry out preemptive airstrikes against the terrorists' bases by the Iraqi air force, just hours before moving to their targets, the newspaper said.

The Iraqi warplanes destroyed seven Daesh posts, where dozens of terrorists and their booby-trapped vehicles were gathering, in the Daesh-held areas of Mayadeen inside Syria and the Iraqi town of al-Qaim near the border with Syria, leaving dozens of terrorists killed, according to al-Basri.

The holy Shia city of Karbala, about 110 km south of Baghdad, is home to the shrines of Imam Hussein (AS) and Hazrat Abbas(AS), while Najaf, some 160 km south of Baghdad, is home to the shrine of Imam Ali (AS), as well as the house of grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Samarra, some 120 km north of Baghdad, is home to the shrines of Imam Hadi (AS) and Imam Hassan Askari (AS).

On July 10, Abadi officially declared the liberation of the northern city of Mosul from Daesh rule after nearly nine months of fierce fighting to dislodge the terrorist militants from their last major stronghold in Iraq. The liberation of Mosul was a big blow to the terrorist group in Iraq.