Sectarian tensions simmer in Iraq shrine city targeted by IS

In this Sunday, March 22, 2015 photo, Iraqi security forces descend along the al-Malwiya minaret at the Al-Mutawakkil Mosque in Samarra, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq. The rapidly mobilized Shiite militias halted their advance and have successfully defended the city, which is also home to a famed 9th century A.D. spiral minaret and is considered a UNESCO world heritage site. The structure is still standing, but today it is covered in black and red graffiti hailing the various militias. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) In this Sunday, March 22, 2015 photo, Iraqi security forces descend along the al-Malwiya minaret at the Al-Mutawakkil Mosque in Samarra, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq. The rapidly mobilized Shiite militias halted their advance and have successfully defended the city, which is also home to a famed 9th century A.D. spiral minaret and is considered a UNESCO world heritage site. The structure is still standing, but today it is covered in black and red graffiti hailing the various militias. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

By Associated Press March 25, 2015 4 min read

SAMARRA, Iraq (AP) – The al-Askari shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra is surrounded by thousands of Shiite militiamen in mismatched uniforms, many of them awaiting transport to the nearby front lines of the war against the Islamic State group.

For months, they have fended off attacks by the extremists and now they are on the offensive in Tikrit to the north, but their presence has alarmed Samarra’s mainly Sunni residents, who fear both sides of the increasingly sectarian conflict.

The golden-domed shrine is among the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, and pilgrims from neighboring Iran continue to flock there despite the fighting. In 2006, Sunni extremists bombed the site, sparking a wave of sectarian bloodletting across the country that killed tens of thousands of people.

As the Islamic State group swept across Iraq last summer, Shiite militiamen heeding a call from the country’s top cleric flooded into Samarra to defend the shrine and halted the militants’ advance 60 miles (95 kilometers) north of Baghdad. Today, the area around the shrine is festooned with militia banners and portraits of Iraqi and Iranian Shiite clerics.

But just across the city there is a conspicuous lack of security forces, and while traffic flows and shops are open during the day, residents say they are walking on eggshells.