The prominent British journalist and author of several books on international affairs, Jonathan Steele, has visited several Supreme Religious Authorities and a number of Hashid al-Shaabi commanders during his five-day visit to Karbala and Najaf.
The direct coordinator Haidar al-Mangooshi said, "With the coordination of the International Media of the Imam Hussein Holy Shrine, the Guardian columnist Jonathan Steele visited several Supreme Religious Authorities, a number of commanders from the Hashid al-Shaabi, an IDP camp and the wounded soldiers from the Hashid force, within an intensive schedule of visits to Holy Karbala and Holy Najaf."
"The first four days of the five-day program were in Karbala and commenced with a tour of the ancient holy city and a meeting with the Deputy Secretary-General of Imam Hussein Holy Shrine, Sayyid Afhdal al-Shami, followed by meetings with the commanders of the Ali al-Akbar Brigade, affiliated to the Imam Hussein Holy Shrine and al-Abbas Combat Battalion, affiliated to al-Abbas Holy Shrine. Then, we inspected the IDP camp located on the Karbala-Najaf Road, which consists of over 1400 fully furnished trailers housing nearly 1200 families from different sects and parts of Iraq. After that, we checked on some of the wounded volunteer fighters of the Hashid al-Shaabi being treated at Imam Hussein Medical City, where they all expressed their loyalty to their nation insisting that as soon as they recover they would go straight back to the battlefields and continue fighting for their land," Mangooshi added.
The program concluded with a visit to the offices of Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Saeed al-Hakim and Ayatollah Sheikh Bashir al-Najafi in Najaf where meetings were held with their sons focusing on the important role of the volunteer fighters in protecting this land from the Takfiri enemies.
It is worth mentioning that the International Media regularly invites well-known journalists to visit Karbala from around the world for the purpose of reflecting to the west the true image of Iraq and its people unlike the one somewhat deformed due to the terrorist acts executed in the region.