DIYALA, Aug. 19 (AKnews) – A campaign has been launched in Kurdistan Region to condemn recent remarks regarding the Imam al-Mahdi – Messiah in the Shiite Islam – fighting Kurds when he appears in the end of times.
Jalaladdin al-Saghir, Imam and preacher of the Buratha Mosque in Baghdad, had said in a lecture recently that Imam al-Mahdi will appear soon and among the first things he will do is “fights the Kurds of Iraq”
According to Shiite Islam, al-Mahdi is the twelfth Imam of the Muslims who has been in occultation for about 11 hundred years when he was a boy and is expected to appear again in the end of times to “fill the world with justice”
According to the Shiite cleric, there are many signs for his coming, among others riots in Syria followed by a Kurdish movement for independence and Kurdish movement in Iraq for independence.
AL-Saghir said one of the major signs is “nuclear bombing” in Damascus that destroys almost all of Syria except for the Kurdish region in northeast and where the Kurds will proclaim independence. He further said in the lecture, then the Turks will invade the Syrian Kurdish region and destroy the Kurds.
He said al-Mahdi will fight the Kurds for their going out of the political system in Iraq and standing against him.
The campaign on the first day of Eid called on the people of Kurdistan Region to not stand idle as his remarks are “fueling disputes and hate between people and will prepare ground for another Anfal against the Kurds”
Anfal was a series of military operations conducted by the former Iraqi regime against the Kurds in 1980s in which the security forces rounded up thousands of civilian Kurds in more than 5,000 villages in the Kurdish areas and forced them into disappearance.
Later, it was discovered that they were mass murdered and buried in mass graves in southern Iraq. Many of the graves have been discovered and the remains have been recovered to Kurdistan Region for burial after 2003. According to figures, as many as 182,000 Kurds, men, women, and children were killed in the campaign.
“We call on the Iraqi parliament and the parliament of Kurdistan Region to condemn and try al-Saghir” the statement read.
By Bryar Mohammed
RY/AKnews