IRAQ: Hundreds in the southern Iraqi city of Basra mourn the death of a local Shi'ite Muslim man killed while fighting in Qusair in Syria on the side of President Bashar al-Assad's forces

Record ID: 375629

  • Title: IRAQ: Hundreds in the southern Iraqi city of Basra mourn the death of a local Shi'ite Muslim man killed while fighting in Qusair in Syria on the side of President Bashar al-Assad's forces
  • Date: 30th May 2013
  • Summary: BASRA, IRAQ (MAY 30, 2013) (REUTERS) MOURNERS CARRYING THE COFFIN OF IRAQI FIGHTER IYAD FADHIL AL-SURAFI WITH WORDS SAYING (Arabic) "ABU AL-FADHIL AL-ABBAS, OH, ZAINAB", WHILE OTHERS CARRY FLAGS WALK BEHIND COFFIN MEN CHANTING (Arabic) "THEIR ASSAULT IS KNOWN" AND MOURNERS REPLYING (Arabic) "THOSE ARE THE SUPPORTERS OF ZAINAB" AS THEY CARRY COFFIN DOWN THE STREET SON OF TH
  • Embargoed: 14th June 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Conflict,Politics,People
  • Reuters ID: LVABOFDD8LJH4L35EU2X03VG4LWB
  • Story Text: Hundreds of Iraqis attended the funeral of a Shiite Muslim fighter killed while fighting in Syria for President Bashar al-Assad's forces, held in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Thursday (May 30).
    Mourners carried the coffin of Iyad Fadhil al-Surafi who, according to relatives, was killed while fighting on the outskirts of the border town of Qusair four days ago.
    Painted in the colours of the Iraqi flag on its side and decorated with flowers on the top, the coffin was carried by members of the Iraqi Shi'ite group Asaib al-Haq wearing military fatigues.
    Carrying Iraqi flags and flags of the Asaib al-Haq movement, mourners chanted "Those are the supporters of Zainab" and "Al-Nusra Front acknowledged them".
    A cousin of the dead fighter Hassan Hamdi said most Iraqi Shi'ites in Basra wanted to join the fighting in Syria in order to protect Shi'ite sacred sites and urged the government to open up the borders.
    "We call on the central government, the government in Baghdad to open the borders for the Iraqi people, because people are running out of patience. There are thousands of volunteers in al-Hayaniya, al-Qibla and in Khamsa Mile (names of Shi'ite districts in Basra) who are ready to go and defend the sacred shrine of Sayyida Zainab and our sacred places in Syria and kill the Takfirists who were gathered to destroy the tomb of Sayyida Zainab. We: Women, men and the elderly will not keep silence. We call for the opening of the borders to go and fight in Sayyida Zainab," he said Iraqi Shi'ite militias have recently begun openly acknowledging they are fighting in Syria, in what they see as a worthy battle against rebels seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad, especially his hardline Sunni opponents.
    The war has already pulled in Sunni Islamists from outside Syria to join rebel ranks. Syria, for its part, has begun sending militias loyal to Assad for training at a base in Shi'ite Iran, Assad's key ally, fighters say.
    Opposition activists said Syrian troops backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters were pressing a sustained assault on Qusair, a town long used by insurgents as a way station for arms and other supplies from Lebanon.
    For Assad, Qusair is a crucial link between Damascus and loyalist strongholds on the Mediterranean coast. Recapturing the town could also sever connections between rebel-held areas in the north and south of Syria.
    In recent months, Iraqi Shi'ite militants have said volunteers are crossing into Syria to fight, often alongside Assad's troops, or to protect the Sayyida Zeinab shrine on the outskirts of Damascus, a particularly holy place for Shiites.
    Some militants have said they were fighting in Syria in response to their religious leader, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but without any official sanction from Tehran, Baghdad or from their militia leadership.
    Now though, Iraq's main Shi'ite militias, Asaib al-Haq and Kata'ib Hezbollah, which waged war on U.S. troops, and former fighters from anti-U.S. Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, have started to acknowledge their role in Syria and that their fighters have been killed there, militants say.
    Syria's upheaval is a political nightmare for Iraq's Shiite leaders who believe a messy fall of Assad would fragment Syria along sectarian lines and bring to power a hostile, hardline Sunni Muslim regime that could stir up Iraq's own combustible Sunni-Shi'ite mix.
    Iraq says it has a policy of non-interference in Syria and refuses to endorse Western and Arab League demands for the removal of Iran's ally Assad.
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