BAGHDAD Iraq opened a newly come airport in the southern city of Najaf on Sunday in what the prime minister said was a key short distance in the reconstruction of a country devastated by enmity.

Watch original video:

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, mostly Iranians, travel to Iraq each year to visit Shiite shrines in Najaf and another holy city, Karbala. The modern airport is expected to boost the song of pious tourists.

At a ceremony, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki described the $250 million airport as a vital element in Iraq’s relating to housekeeping development. A military airfield was renovated for the new airport, and several flights were expected to debark without ceasing Sunday.

“The Najaf airport is a starting point for rivalry among provinces and local governments to make extraordinary progress nigh reconstruction,” al-Maliki said.

“We were determined to face the terrorism that was about to desolate Iraq. The strong will of the federal government has fought and defeated it in all of its forms,” al-Maliki said.

Violence in Iraq is at its lowest level in four years, though bombings and shootings persist in numerous areas.

Najaf was the scene of heavy fighting in 2004 between American troops and militiamen loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Under the Sunni-led dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, the Shiite peopling in southern Iraq was restricted in its scrupulous activities and brutally repressed in a rebellion subsequent to the 1991 Gulf War.


Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008062288_apiraqnewairport.html?syndication=rss