NAJAF, Iraq, Aug 28 (AFP) - Najaf`s holy Imam Ali shrine, around which rebel fighters loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Sadr fought US troops for months, will reopen its doors to worshippers in 10 days, officials said Saturday.
"The shrine will reopen in 10 days," Najaf Governor Adnan al-Zurfi told a news conference flanked by Iraqi officials.
A deadly standoff between Sadr`s Mehdi Army and US-led Iraqi government troops around the shrine over the last three weeks has left the holy city in ruins, with entire neighbourhoods partially demolished.
The mausoleum itself was occupied for three weeks by hundreds of Sadr supporters acting as human shields while fighters used it as a base from which to wage their spring rebellion against the US-led coalition.
The Imam Ali shrine, which sustained minor damage during the fighting, is one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, an equivalent of Jerusalem`s Holy Sepulchre for many Christians.
"There is a plan to repair the holy shrine and expand it," said Sayed (honorific) Hussein Barakeh Shami, who heads the Shiite Waqf, or endowment authority.
"Many pilgrims visit this city, so we drew up several plans. At the beginning we will clean up the city and try to forget all this destruction," he explained.
"But we are also now working on engineering plans to rebuild and expand the holy shrine so that it will be same size as the Prophet Mohammad shrine in Mecca," he added.
On Friday, Sadr`s office handed over control of the Imam Ali shrine to representatives of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani who are now checking that all the treasures locked inside the compound have been preserved.
"We have a schedule to go through the inventory but it will take months, it`s not an easy process," Shami said.
A team of government ministers who visited Najaf and its twin city of Kufa confirmed that a compensation committee had been set up for residents and that reconstruction plans were afoot.
"In addition to damages to the health sector, we have further damage to the water sector, which had already been neglected for 35 years in Najaf," said Public Works Minister Nasreen Mustafa Barwari.
None of the officials specified what budget had been allocated to the reconstruction of Najaf.