The bombs that severely damaged the Golden Mosque in this city on the Tigris River almost destroyed the foundations of the nation, but the Golden Mosque is rising again, just like Iraq.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, toured the city and saw the reconstruction effort today.

Steel beams gracefully soar into the sky where ruined masonry once stood. The mosque is a holy site to Shiia Muslims around the world, and is the focus of pilgrimages for the faithful. The United Nations declared the Golden Mosque — and the nearby Blue Mosque — as a world heritage site, which is a site of cultural or natural importance to humanity.

The al-Qaida attack on the holy place Feb. 22, 2006, shook Iraq. “It was akin to terrorists bombing St. Peter’s [Basilica] in the Vatican or the Western Wall in Jerusalem,” said Michael C. Craft, the Samarra team leader for the provincial reconstruction team in Iraq’s Salahuddin province.

The analogy is not exact, because while the Golden Mosque is a Shiia shrine, Samarra is a Sunni Muslim city. The attack threatened to ignite a sectarian civil war inside Iraq, pitting the two largest ethnicities against each other.

All members of the government pulled together to try and keep a lid on the violence, but ethnic killings multiplied, and the country threatened to spin out of control.

Walking through the streets of Samarra in 2006 would not have been a safe option. But American and Iraqi officials had no compunction about the highest-ranking U.S. officer taking a stroll through the city today.

U.S. soldiers of the 25th Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team drove the admiral to the middle of the city in a mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle. Mullen and Army Maj. Gen. Bob Caslen, commander of Multinational Division North, then strolled through the main shopping street toward the mosque.

The stores were full of goods, and people were in the streets. Shoppers could buy everything from electronic gear to baby clothes. Vendors stood outside their shops, barbers stood by to give haircuts, and workmen scurried about bringing building supplies into the few vacant storefronts left.

Bending the Admiral’s Ear
When the Iraqis saw the admiral, they felt free to walk right up to him with suggestions, complaints and advice. The mayor of the city met the admiral, and the two men and interpreters climbed three flights of stairs to the roof of a ruined building that overlooks the Golden Mosque construction site.

“The Samarrans see the mosque as an engine of growth for the city,” Craft said. “Even with the mosque being rebuilt, there are still between 5,000 and 15,000 pilgrims coming to the city each weekend.” That number grows during important anniversaries, he said.

And that’s part of the problem, he said. Charter buses bring the faithful in, mostly from Baghdad. The pilgrims get off the buses and walk through concrete Jersey barriers to enter the shrine area. Once they finish the visit, they get back on the buses and leave. “The Jersey barriers effectively cut off the city from the shrine,” Craft said.

Samarrans want the barriers taken down so the pilgrims can at least see the shops and hotels along the city’s riverside.

Samarra Recovers
The city and surrounding area are recovering from the dark days. Samarra once was the center of the Iraqi pharmaceutical industry. That is returning, and a factory in town employs more than 3,000 people. The company ships pharmaceuticals throughout Iraq and soon will expand production to supply medicines to other nations in the region.

City officials are working with provincial and national leaders to build the infrastructure. “The people are demanding services, and the city officials are responding,” Craft said. City officials are involved in building the budget and spending the funds.

Building Social Infrastructure
The city is moving ahead, but there are other, systemic problems. Under Saddam Hussein, the social infrastructure was stunted, and there still are no Iraqi equivalents to the Rotary Club or the Lions. Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts do not exist here.

“We are working with local citizens to build these institutions,” Craft said. “These are organizations that we take for granted in the United States, but they are nonexistent or nascent here. They are necessary for a society of law.”

The American footprint in Samarra will change in the future, military officials said, though they did not discuss how. But the workmen still climb about the Golden Mosque even as the calls to prayer go out over the loudspeaker. In 2010, the Golden Mosque will be rebuilt, Inshallah, the mayor, said.

DoD
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

For the first time since 2003, Shi’a Muslims participated in a mass pilgrimage to the holy city of Samarra July 7.

A mass celebration was held in honor of the former Shi’a Supreme Islamic Iraqi leader, Imam Sayyid Baqir al-Sadr. Thousands made the pilgrimage to Samarra to show their respect for the anniversary of Baqir’s death on this date 28 years ago.

Baqir could trace his ancestry back to the Holy Prophet Muhammad through the Seventh Imam, Imam Musa al-Kadhim. He had many followers in Iraq prior to his brutal death in 1980.

The day was full of celebration and remembrance and demonstrated that security has improved to a level that an event such as this could be held in the once precarious city of Samarra.

Iraqi Security Forces provided protection along the route from Karbala to Samarra, where over 110 buses carrying the pilgrims traveled to the northern-Iraqi city.

“At this time last year, Samarra was a city under siege by al-Qaeda criminals and criminal activity,” said Lt. Col. Thomas Hauerwas, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). “Today, Shi’a pilgrims came to the Al Asharia Shrine because of their faith in the Iraqi Security Forces and the overall security of Samarra.”

Balad, a predominately Shia city, also held a ceremony paying respect to Baqir.

A few thousand joined in the celebration there as many of the gatherers packed the Sayyid Muhammad Mosque with no incidents.

“The celebration in Balad today was marked by large crowds gathering peacefully and enjoying the day out with their families,” said Maj Timothy Brumfield, 1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry Regiment executive officer. “This is largely possible due to the sharp decline in violence resulting from scores of former criminals choosing another life and reconciling with the Iraqi Government.”

MNF-I

Commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Col. Michael McBride, speaks with a shop owner at a Samarra city market in January.

After completion of a recent operation reconnecting old economic partners, the people of the northern-Iraqi city of Samarra can breathe again.

The “Bastogne” Soldiers of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, recently finished conducting multiple operations that cleared al-Qaida fighters and other enemy extremist from the desert areas west and south of Samarra, including the southern portion of the city.

Over the past year al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) has had a chokehold on the “Fallujah Road”, the main road between al Anbar province’s population centers and Samarra.

They have operated freely on and around the Salah ad Din Province portion of the route, restricting travel between the two areas.

Al-Qaida had forced civilian traffic to alternate routes, choking this critical economic line of communication. The enemy did this by hijacking and kidnapping drivers; preying upon helpless travelers and truck drivers in the secluded areas of the desert away from security forces.

According to Maj. Jim DeOre, 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment operations officer, “this had many Iraqis traveling considerable distances out of the way, forcing them to use a great deal of fuel and energy in the process.

“The restriction of travel on this route strangled the economic growth of the city and its surrounding towns and villages,” said DeOre. “Opening this road displays to the Iraqis that Iraqi security (ISF) and coalition forces (CF) are making positive gains in their efforts to remove AQI’s criminal influence over the people.”

These enemy extremist had smothered this passageway by kidnapping, murdering, and extorting money from any civilians traveling on the route. The emplacement of improvised explosive devices (IED) ultimately made civilian travel on this thoroughfare almost non-existent, according to DeOre, whose battalion controls the area where most of the route runs.

The opening of the route offers more convenient travel for people looking to drive between Salah ad Din and Anbar. This freedom of movement for Iraqis and is attributed to the construction of checkpoints along the route and the establishment of the Sons of Iraq (SoI) groups manning them.

By having a 24-hour, 7-day a week over watch on the route, Iraqi and coalition forces can ensure AQI doesn’t return to the area and terrorize the local populace.

“These security positions deny use of the road to the criminal activity of AQI fighters, thereby making the area safer for people traveling on the road and those who live in the area,” DeOre said.

Captain Nathan Hicks, commander of Delta Company, 2-327, said SoI members in his unit’s area are pointing out hiding places AQI use to conceal their bombs and dangerous weapons. Hick’s unit, responsible for most of the route running into Samarra, routinely speaks with SoI groups in its area seeking out information leading to weapons caches and enemy hideouts.

“The greatest effect the SoI have on the people here is making their homes and towns safer,” said Hicks. “Brave men are standing up SoI groups to deny AQI sanctuary there.”

If coalition forces are correct in their assessment that this route will stimulate the economy of Samarra, thousands of people will see and feel the positive impact. The transport of goods and services will allow the economy growth of the city of Samarra, and the surrounding areas along the route. It will also improve the quality of life for thousands of Iraqi citizens.

One day during the first week of the route opening, a coalition force patrol had counted over 240 fuel trucks traveling on the road.

“Agricultural and fuel trucks travel this route by the hundreds everyday,” said DeOre. “We believe there is no doubt that this movement of goods between the provinces will stimulate the economy of large and small towns along the entire length of the road as well as the cities that are now linked by its opening.”

DVIDS
By Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Doheny
1st Brigade Combat Team,
101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) Public Affairs

DVIDS
By Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Doheny
1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) Public Affairs Office

As Americans we should all know the inspiring story of our founding fathers and all the brave men who sacrificed everything to fight off oppression. Basically a bunch of farmers, blacksmiths, tailors, teachers and other ordinary men answered the call to arms in the 1770′s to rid our country of tyranny. They were trained by foreigners who had experienced war and who had fought their enemy before. They then took to the battlefields as Soldiers of a common bond…the quest for freedom.

Through heavy losses, and an ever-developing knowledge of their enemy, combined with a passion for freedom, those men did what had to be done…and the rest they say is history.

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