Iraq builds 'Mother of all Battles' mosque in praise of Saddam

SADDAM HUSSEIN has unveiled the latest weapon in his cynical campaign to use religion to bolster his dictatorship: the Mother of all Battles mosque.

The grandiose project, which shoots up into the sand-blown skies next to a modern motorway 15 miles outside Baghdad, bears the imprimatur of a man keen to preserve his tyrannical legacy in both blood and stone.

The mosque's towering minarets are built to resemble ballistic missiles sitting on launch pads and its 605-page Koran has been written, the Iraqi propaganda machine boasts, with Saddam's own blood. Its name comes from his famous description of the Gulf war.

The Scud-shaped minarets (complete with launch platforms) on the mosque's perimeter are 37metres (120ft) high; there are four more minarets next to the mosque's dome that resemble huge machinegun barrels, each 28 metres (93ft) high. Taken together, the numbers 37-4-28 give the date of birth of the megalomaniacal leader.

Most striking is the dubious and totally unverifiable claim that Saddam donated nearly 50 pints of his own blood for the writing of a Koran. All 605 separate pages of dark red Arabic script, as seen by The Telegraph, have been encased in glass in a rotunda inside the mosque.

Dahar Al-Ani, director of information for the mosque, said: "Over three years, the president gave us a total of 28 litres of his own blood which has been mixed with chemicals to produce this hand-written Koran of 605 pages."

Western diplomats based in Baghdad are unimpressed with the Iraqi leader's religious devotion, dismissing the mosque and its holy book written in blood as a crude publicity stunt. "How can we be sure this is Saddam's blood and not that of some of his victims?" one asked.

The construction of the mosque is the latest phase of the Iraqi government's "Faith Campaign" that opposes religious freedom and has included assassinations of religious leaders.

One diplomat said: "Saddam is just supporting his ideology with religion. He plays the religious card just to stay in power."

After the Gulf war, Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim, suppressed a revolt led by the majority Shi-ite groups in the South. Then in 1994, the president, looking to bolster his image as a good Muslim, banned alcohol and encouraged more mosque building.

Large murals and bronze statues of Saddam praying are as common now days across Iraq as pictures of him shooting guns and patting small children on the head. Prisoners in Iraq can reportedly obtain early release by memorising long passages from the Koran.

At the Umm El-Mahare (Mother of all Battles) mosque, there is a massive water and stone relief map of the Arab world. Iraq is represented by a large rock carved with the faces of "martyrs" who gave their lives in the "Mother of all Battles".

Iraqi officials say that the all-Iraqi-built mosque and the holy shrine housing the Koran have been constructed to prove to the world that Iraq can continue to defy American and British efforts to impose their "imperial will" in the Middle East.

The huge dome of the mosque is inscribed in Arabic lettering with the word "La", meaning "No" in Arabic. "This is the biggest 'No' ever given to the Americans," said Mr Al-Ani proudly.

Iraq's long-suffering citizens could draw a different message, however. The reality is that Saddam has again diverted much-needed public money to finance one of his pet projects while his people remain mired in poverty.

In Baghdad, an even larger mosque - the information ministry claims it will be the world's largest when finished - is under construction, while another sprawling presidential palace is almost complete, with four huge busts of Saddam's scowling visage staring out over the city's squalor.

One of the priorities of the Faith Campaign is to fend off unrest in Shi'ite religious centres in the South. In the holy city of Najaf, officials last week adamantly denied fresh claims by Iraqi dissident groups that Saddam's government is responsible for the mysterious death in June of the Ayatollah Hussein Bahrir Al-Aloum.

The sudden death of the ayatollah, who had a history of heart trouble, followed the recent killings of three leading religious figures in the city. Those murders were blamed on Iranian-backed factions.

Supporters of the dead ayatollah, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, claimed that their 75-year-old leader was poisoned because he would not agree to allow the president's men to direct Friday prayer sessions. "Saddam ordered him killed because he would not support the government's Faith Campaign," one man who claimed to be a supporter of armed groups fighting in Iraq, told me.

Heavy machineguns placed in turrets across Najaf, as well as soldiers wearing flak jackets in the brutal 115-degree summer heat bore testimony to the difficulty Saddam still faces in imposing his religious views across Iraq.