Iran's influence? You can hear it on Iraqi streets

reuteurs ^ | 9/30/08 | reutuers

[Flavius]

NAJAF, Iraq, Sept 30 (Reuters) - In the holy Iraqi Shi'ite city of Najaf, Iranian tourists throng the streets, speak to shopkeepers in Farsi and pay in Iranian money. Farsi chants blare from speakers at a nearby shrine.

The scene would probably horrify both the United States and Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbours, who suspect Shi'ite non-Arab Iran of nefarious and subversive influence in Arab lands. Even some of Najaf's citizens are wary of Iranian leverage.

But the city, a centre of religious and political power in Shi'ite-majority Iraq, benefits from Iranian tourism and aid.

The uniforms of rubbish men sport Farsi inscriptions, as do their gleaming new Iran-donated rubbish trucks. Iranian builders toil at the site of a new Iranian-sponsored hospital.

Iranian donations pay for the renovation of Shi'ite holy sites, and Iran has offered cash and expertise to boost electricity capacity in Iraq's Shi'ite south.

Each year hundreds of thousands of Iranian pilgrims visit Najaf's shrine of Imam Ali, one of the most important figures of Shi'ite Islam.