Behind the scenes at golden dome building site

In an instant, 18 mounds of professionally buried explosives blew apart a revered golden dome in Samarra. They also obliterated the walls, covered in hand-painted porcelain tiles, that surround the shrine and took out the entire ceiling.
Fixing the mess will take time, but a team of Iraqi architects and engineers is determined to return the al-Askari shrine to exactly the way it was before the attack almost two-and-a-half years ago. That blast was followed by a second bombing that brought down two golden minarets on either side of the dome in June 2007.
The United Nations’ heritage agency, UNESCO, is overseeing the reconstruction effort in partnership with the Iraqi Government, with a contract for detailed designs of the shrine and its famous dome due to be handed out in the coming days.
Originally designed by Iranian architects, it is undecided yet whether Iran will play a part in reconstructing the site. Too much Iranian involvement will unlikely go down well with the local Sunni population. However Shia Iran will be very keen to ensure that the shrine is restored to its former glory.
Preparing the ground, scores of labourers in blue boiler suits have been hard at work since February shoveling away rubble in tractors, storing anything worth saving and boring holes into the remains with electronic drills.
The structure alone is not forecast to be completed until August 2009. Then begins the pain-staking task of re-fitting hundreds of gold-plated copper tiles that adjourn the outside of the 32-foot high dome as well as the golden minarets.
Most of the tiles were salvaged from the carnage but some are bent out of shape and may have to be replaced.
Restoration work is always difficult and time-consuming. In the case of the al-Askari Shrine, it is also hugely politically and religiously sensitive.

The shrine, which has been around for about 1,000 years, is one of the most sacred sites in Shia Islam. It was destroyed in two attacks blamed on Sunni al-Qaeda, intent upon fermenting civil war between Iraq’s two main sects.
The plan almost worked. In the wake of the golden dome blast in February 2006, thousands of people were killed by Shia and Sunni death squads.
Rebuilding the shrine is seen as a way to reunite the country. It is also a vital step for the Sunni city of Samarra, which thrived off revenue generated by tens of thousands of pilgrims who flocked to the shrine each year.
A network of narrow streets surrounding the walled compound that houses the structure and an adjacent green mosque once thronged with shoppers. Visitors would dart from one small shop to the next, buying souvenirs and snacks.
Today the area lies dead, with just one store still open for business, selling food and drink to the workers on the building site.
Haj Zuhair al-Auzari, a leading Shia architect, is determined to work every day until the shrine is restored.
“It is my duty to help repair the shrine,” said Mr Auzari who left his job in Baghdad to work on the project.
The risks are high. Attacking the golden dome a third time would be a major coup for al-Qaeda. Several of the workers have already been threatened for joining in the reconstruction effort. In addition, everyone who enters the building site is closely searched and vetted.
“As an architect, I am willing to die to protect the shrine,” said Mr Auzari, voicing a passion that is felt by many about the subject.
As well as restoring the building, care must be taken with all the unsalvageable parts because each crumb from the original shrine is viewed as holy.
Giant mounds of carefully piled concrete rubble line the street immediately outside the compound. They will soon be taken away to be buried in a specially-designated site next to the Tigris River.

Studying a diagram of the original shrine, the UNESCO representative at the site is fully conscious of the political, religious and social significance of the project.
“Now that we have cleared the site and made these survey drawings, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Usam Ghaidan, who was born in Iraq but lives in Holland. He is highly experienced in conserving Islamic sites.
“We can see what the problem is and how we can deal with it, what procedure we should follow and what timescale.”
Mr Ghaidan was unable, however, to hazard a guess at the cost of the work, which will only be fully known once more detailed studies are undertaken.
UNESCO, which last year named Samarra as one of its World Heritage Sites, is also looking at helping to restore other 9th and 10th century sites in the city, which used to be the capital of the Abbasid Empire.
“There is a moral responsibility for UNESCO to be involved in the preservation and conservation if possible,” said Mr Ghaidan, who retired from agency in 2003 but agreed to come back as a consultant.
Local people see rebuilding the shrine as central to restoring their city, which was neglected under Saddam Hussein and repeatedly damaged in car bombs, gun fights and air raids in the years after the 2003 invasion.
“We hope that they hurry up and rebuild the shrine because that will help to improve relations between the two sects [Sunni and Shia],” said Ahlam, a 44-year-old teacher.
Sheikh Khalid Fuluyah Hassan el-Badi, a leader of a unit of armed guards who are helping to bring security to Samarra, also felt that the project is important.
“We consider the shrine as the light of the city. Before it was destroyed Samarra was a tourist spot, people flocked here from far and wide. Now it is a sad place. There is not a house in the city without a problem,” he said.
In contrast to the fevered work on the shrine, there is very little in the way of reconstruction efforts in Samarra itself, which is crying out for help.
Many houses have no electricity or running water, streets are littered with rubbish and the ruins of destroyed buildings. Projects are being drawn up but the implementation is slow.
Mr Ghaidan of UNESCO said the reconstruction of the shrine should happen in tengent with the restoration of Samarra.
He said: “If the Iraqi Government moves quickly and implements its urban renewal scheme and that happens hand in hand with our work here then I think we will see a major qualitative change.”

[Picture 1: Labourers drill holes in rubble;
Picture 2: Shoveling the rubble;
Picture 3: Scaffolding around the site;
Picture 4: A line of shuttered tourist stores;
Picture 5: Sacred rubble waiting to be buried near Tigris;
Picture 6: Mr Ghaidan talks to me about the shrine, with diagram on the wall;
Picture 7: A US soldier stands in a patch of rubbish-strew wasteland in Samarra in front of two scruffy children;
Picture 8: The remains of the inside dome. There was an inner dome and an outer dome. The latter was completely destroyed in the blast;
Picture 9: Scaffolding inside the shrine.]

Comments

[ِAimen Al-Ibrahim]

Hope everything will be repaired and reconstructed in Iraq and hope the hearts of Iraqi politicians will be fixed and united on day
Thanks Ms. Deborah for updating people of issues in Iraq

[Redz]

the sammara mosque bombing is unlikely to be the work of so called alqaeda in iraq and good reasons it wasn't, the insurgent groups when there was uch group called that controlled the city in late 2004 and 2005 totally and posted videos of it on the net they did not blow it up then and they explicitly denied doing it, the professional way it was destroyed suggests other culprits