150 Iranians enter Najaf with forged visas

The Council of Najaf has confirmed that 150 Iranians arrived at the city's airport on Thursday, carrying forged visas. Jawad Alkraawi, a member of the committee supervising the airport told reporters: "the council granted new visas to 150 Iranians who arrived at Najaf airport with forged visas on their passports." Alkraawi added that the Iranian tourists were victims of deception and fraud by an Iranian company. "Iraqi authorities stopped the 150 Iranians at Najaf airport for two days," he added, stressing that the council intervened on humanitarian grounds as most of them were women and children. The province of Najaf, 160 kilometres south of Baghdad, contains the shrine of Imam Ali bin Abi Talib and sees the arrival of nearly 5,000 Iranian pilgrims everyday.