Iraqis dedicate Id to ‘martyrs’ in Valley of Peace
People postpone celebration and mourn those who died fighting ISIS jihadists
The Valley of Peace cemetery in the Shia holy city of Najaf is filled with mourners paying tribute to “martyrs” who have fallen in battles to expel the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria group from Iraq’s cities.
In keeping with religious tradition, Kazem al-Aibi has already visited the tombs of relatives in his home village for the Eid holidays which started Saturday for Iraqi Shias.
But this year he also made his way to the Wadi al-Salam (Valley of Peace) cemetery in Najaf — one of the world’s largest — to sit by the white tombstone of his son killed fighting ISIS jihadists.
Mohammed joined the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary units, or “popular mobilisation” forces dominated by Iranian-backed Shiite militias, to battle IS alongside the Iraqi military and police.
Like tens of thousands of other Iraqis, Aibi’s son signed up after a call from Grand Ayatollah Ali alSistani, Iraq’s highest Shia religious authority, to take up arms and reverse the lightning 2014 advance of ISIS in north and west Iraq. Mohammed left his village in Maysan province, in the Shia heartland south of Baghdad, to join the Hashed and fought in several battles before he fell in Al-Miqdadiyah, hundreds of kilometres away from home.
Wearing a black and white keffiyeh headscarf, the father wept openly in the cemetery which serves as the final resting place for millions and where more and more “martyrs” are being buried each day.
Iraqi security forces, for their part, have so far not disclosed their losses.
In the fourth year of war against ISIS, Iraq has announced a string of victories, most importantly the recapture of the country’s second-largest city, Mosul, and the expulsion of ISIS this week from the town of Tal Afar.
The apparently irreversible advances on the battlefield, supported by US-led coalition air power, give at least some solace to Kazem al-Aiba.