Hujjat al-Islam Sattar al-Murshidi, the trustee of the Holy Askariyayn Shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra, has issued a statement referring to the recent security incidents in Samarra and called for more support for the city.
On November 28, Iraqi security forces killed all members of a group of five Daesh Takfiri gunmen, some of them wearing suicide belts, who attempted to infiltrate Samarra.
At least four police officers were killed and wounded while repelling the attack.
The text of the statement is as follows:
In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
“Make war on them so that God may punish them by your hands and humiliate them, and help you against them, and heal the hearts of a faithful folk” [The Holy Quran 9:14]
While, with honour and dignity, we support the recent victories in Mosul, we express regret over the occurrence of certain events and insecurity and the arrival of the enemies on foot in a district which is near to the pilgrims and residents of Samarra and we affirm and emphasize that Samarra is a special city and the enemies always have had this city under consideration.
For this reason, we must give this city more support and make maximum efforts to prevent a repeat of such incidents because it will have repercussions on across the country.
In this regard, we call on the government of Iraq, and especially the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces [Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi] to assume responsibility and give full attention to Samarra and to protect the Holy Shrine of these two Imams [Ali al-Hadi and Hasan al-Askari] and the pilgrims to this holy shrine, establish security in the Old City, increasethe presence of security forces in Samarra, support them and do this as soon as possible because we foresee the presence of millions of pilgrims in the city.
We call on the people of Samarra to be cautious because all of them are the targets of the enemies and they must cooperate with the security forces to monitor suspicious movements.
May God bless our martyrs and heal the wounded. We thank the warriors of the security forces, Popular Mobilization Forces and the Air Force for their efforts and ask God to protect Iraq and the sanctities of Iraq and bestow dignity on the Iraqi people, the army and soldiers.
Shaykh Sattar al-Murshidi
Trustee of the Holy Askariyayn Shrine