Hawzah News Agency (Najaf, Iraq) – A group of workers at Lady Ruqayya (sa) shrine in Syria along with a group of Iraqi Shia Muslims met with Grand Ayatollah Bashir al-Najafi, a senior cleric in Iraq on Thursday, May 18, and enjoyed his guidelines.

During the meeting, Grand Ayatollah Najafi urged Shia Muslims to develop their programs in order to maximize the spiritual atmosphere in the Ahlul Bayt (as) holy shrines and asserted, "Islam's enemies and the descendants of Banu Ummaya are out to destroy our holy shrines in any way they can, but their attempts have never been successful."

Elsewhere in his remarks, the cleric addressed a group of Iraqi Shias in which he urged support for the families of Iraq's popular mobilization forces who are currently fighting ISIS (or Daesh) in the battlefields.

The Shia source of emulation reiterated that the families of the mobilization forces must be taken care of and the wounded soldiers must also be supported since they accepted the call of Maraji (Shia sources of emulations) to go to the war against ISIS terrorists and it's a religious duty to protect their families and loved ones.

"The innocent lives that were lost during the battle against ISIS are the reason that Iraq is free now," Ayatollah al-Najafi concluded.