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IRAQ: Tourism takes flight in southern shrine city

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The government may be in Baghdad and the oil reserves in Basra, but the smaller city of Najaf, halfway between Iraq’s two centers of power, has a treasure that could be the envy of them both.

‘Our oil here is tourism,’ said Abed Hussein Abtan, the deputy provincial governor in Najaf.

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Next to Mecca, the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad, Najaf and its neighbor Karbala hold Islam’s holiest monuments. If they could, Shiite Muslims from around the Middle East would flock to the city to pray at the shrine of Imam Ali, the cousin and companion of Muhammad, and the first caliph of the Shiite branch of Islam.

Decades of repression and war had reduced the pilgrimage to a trickle. But next week, Najaf is taking a giant step toward tapping into its tourism resource when it joins the short list of Iraqi cities with airports capable of handling large commercial jets.

After an $80-million renovation of an abandoned military airfield, Najaf Airport will open to commercial traffic July 20, Abtan said.

At first, there will be three or four flights a day. Najaf officials foresee rapid growth and are planning to pump $170 million more into the project. Within six months, they foresee 50 flights a day.

‘In theory, the airport should be able to receive 3 million travelers a year in two years,’ Abtan said.

Their hope is that the convenience of air travel will stimulate a quick return of the religious pilgrims who once flocked in at the rate of 30,000 a day from Shiite areas.

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The main attraction is the shrine of Imam Ali. It contains a gilded monument that is said to cover the burial sites of Adam and Noah in addition to Ali. Pilgrims filing by the three crypts recite one prayer to each.

The shrine is part of a standard itinerary that takes in a number of other sites in the two cities and often also includes a visit to the Salam Valley cemetery where Shiites from around the Middle East bury their relatives. Karbala, about 35 miles away, has the shrine of Ali’s son Hussein, whose murder was one of the causes of the split of Islam into Shiite and Sunni.

The airport is a key extension of a commercial resurgence that has taken off in Najaf since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein, who had severely cut down the traffic of Shiites from Iran and other countries.

The battles fought between the U.S. military and followers of influential Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr briefly put a stop to that development in 2004, but it has taken off again with improved security.

‘Opening the airport is considered as a dream for the people of Najaf, as it will open the doors for economic affairs to be refreshed and for the tourism projects,’ said Nouri Juhaishi, owner of the Dur Najaf Hotel.

Hotel owners are hoping that air travel will diminish the bargaining power of the Iranian Haj Ministry, which oversees pilgrimage visas and has taken advantage of the hotel glut to drive down prices for Iranians. Currently, about 2,000 Iranians arrive daily, Abtan said. He is expecting that to more than double once the airport opens.

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The airport will be capable of handling the Boeing 727 and 737, and the Airbus 300. In Iraq, only Baghdad, Basra, Irbil and Sulaimaniya have large carrier airports.

Several international carriers are expressing interest in scheduling flights. Abtan said the city is being picky.

‘We were careful about dealing with unknown companies,’ he said. ‘We needed to deal with companies that have good reputations, so we don’t accept used and not good airplanes.’

The July 20 opening ceremony will go on with the main terminal only about a third complete. Work will continue another two or three months. The construction was done by local companies working under a foreign consultant, Abtan said.

The project began with only a runway of insufficient width for large aircraft, project manager Karim Abdali said. A consortium of Iraqi companies rebuilt the runway and is constructing the new terminal.

A British firm won the security contract with an agreement that within three years, it would be staffed entirely by Iraqis. Aqiq Kuwaiti Co. won a $50-million contract to operate the airport, also with the understanding that in three years it will staff the management team with Iraqis.

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Haider Mayali of the Najaf building board said the city has taken the lead among Iraqi’s 18 governorates in issuing licenses under a new law adopted last year to encourage foreign investment.

‘The airport will be our door to the world,’ Mayali said.

- Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf. Saif Rasheed and Doug Smith contributed from Baghdad.

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