Financial Times FT.com

Soaring Shia ambitions in Iraq threatened

By Jack Fairweather in Najaf

Published: April 12 2008 03:42 | Last updated: April 12 2008 03:42

The soaring ambitions of the Shia community in Iraq can be glimpsed in a modest room in the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf.

On a table sits a mock-up of what the revered shrine visited by millions each year and the surrounding old city will look like after a rebuild that is forecast to cost more than $10bn (€6.3bn, £5bn).

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