$50 million assigned for rebuilding Holy Najaf, Kufa

By: Hamoud Kufi

BAGHDAD, Iraq: Iraqi government said on Wednesday it has allocated an initial 50 million dollars for reconstruction in the holy cities of Najaf and Kufa, which were damaged during fighting between US and Iraqi forces and Mehdi militia led by Moqtada As-Sadr.

The three-week clashes in August that also claimed hundreds of lives were brought to an end by a peace deal brokered by Ayatullah Ali As-Sistani.

In a statement, the interim government said: “This amount represents the initial payment in this big project.”

It did not say how much the government planned to spend in total.

Under the peace deal, the Iraqi government said it would compensate victims of the fighting. The statement said the government would “allocate a sufficient budget to compensate all those harmed”.

Many reconstruction projects in Iraq have been delayed by violence and instability.

On Tuesday, United Nations Secretary Gerenal Kofi Annan warned that violence in Iraq could make it more difficult to create the conditions for successful elections in January 2005 and called for greater efforts to convince the Iraqi people that they will ultimately be “the masters of their own political future.”

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