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Source: CentralAsiaOnline.comBAGHDAD \u2013 Baghdad resident Ali Nagy has been receiving a steady stream of visitors since he returned from Syria earlier in April. Many believed him dead.<\/p>\n
Source: CentralAsiaOnline.com
BAGHDAD \u2013 Baghdad resident Ali Nagy has been receiving a steady stream of visitors since he returned from Syria earlier in April. Many believed him dead.<\/p>\n
Nagy, 33, is telling family and friends of the 20 days he spent in Syria, hoping they learn from his ordeal.<\/p>\n
“I sold mobile telephone recharge cards in … eastern Baghdad for two years,” he told Mawtani. “Some of my not-so-good friends introduced me to a Hizbullah militia member.”<\/p>\n
“[He] told me about Syria, efforts by armed groups to destroy the sacred shrines and individuals … who returned [from Syria] with enough money to buy their own houses,” Nagy said. “He told me that I … could be an asset … in protecting the [shrine of] Sayyida Zainab.”<\/p>\n
The man offered him $5,000 to go to Syria, Nagy said. He also offered Nagy a salary four times higher than his present one and a chance for employment upon his return, Nagy said.<\/p>\n
“Two days later, he gave me $2,000 and … said that my wife would get the rest of the money when I arrived in Syria,” Nagy said. She never did.<\/p>\n
‘We never saw, nor reached, the shrines’
Nagy flew to an airport near Tehran before travelling on to Damascus where he and some other men were taken to a Syrian army camp.<\/p>\n
“The next day, they took us to another camp, where dozens of Iraqis and Lebanese were being trained by Syrian and Iranian [instructors],” Nagy said.<\/p>\n
After six days of weapons training and religious lectures, the recruits went to Homs.<\/p>\n
Upon their arrival, the Syrians took the recruits to a run-down, exhausted unit and told them, “This is your place, now help your brothers,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We were shocked,” he said. “We knew we had been deceived.”<\/p>\n
Over three days, Nagy said he heard stories of young men killed in combat without ever seeing the venerated Shia shrines.<\/p>\n
Nagy confronted a Syrian army commander, who replied, “All the land of Syria is sacred”.<\/p>\n
He and nine others resolved to go home.<\/p>\n
Escape from Syria
Two days later, Nagy and three others seized a chance to escape, walking several kilometres and crossing into Iraq.<\/p>\n
“I am now ready to bear whatever the law dictates, because the law does not protect the foolhardy,” he said. “But I will not forfeit my right to prosecute the one who cheated and misled me.”<\/p>\n
“My trip to defend the sacred shrines in Syria was a lie,” he said. “I didn’t even come close.”<\/p>\n
Militias target impoverished youth
Nagy’s tale sounds familiar, Iraqi Interior Ministry Col. Nouri al-Maksousi said.<\/p>\n
Investigations revealed that many Iraqi casualties in Syria had been killed on battlefields far from the shrines of Sayyida Zainab and Sayyida Sukainah, al-Maksousi said, even though those Iraqis had expected to defend the shrines.<\/p>\n
Al-Maksousi accused Iran-backed militias of “deceiving and misinforming” low-income Iraqi men into dying on a pretext.<\/p>\n
Such deception is “despicable,” said Baghdad cleric Sheikh Jamal Hussein al-Wakeel.<\/p>\n
“We went there a few days ago and found there was no threat \u2013 there are sufficient forces there to protect [the shrines],” he said.<\/p>\n
“We don’t want to see this scene being repeated,” he said. “There is no religious calling imploring them to go there.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Source: CentralAsiaOnline.comBAGHDAD – Baghdad resident Ali Nagy has been receiving a steady stream of visitors since he returned from Syria earlier in April. Many believed him dead. Nagy, 33, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[175],"class_list":{"0":"post-16406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-terrorism-a-fundamentalism","7":"tag-updated"},"yoast_head":"\n