UK-based Copperchase has won a contract to build a new airport in central Iraq to cater to religious pilgrims who visit Karbala and the neighbouring Najaf every year, according to news agency Bloomberg.

The scope of the project’s first phase, which costs between $250m and $500m, includes a runway, terminal, control tower and related facilities.

The passenger terminal is designed to handle between 2 and 2.5 million passengers a year, according to the Bloomberg report citing Nahidh Mohammed Salih, chairman of Copperchase in Iraq.

Construction of the airport is expected to start immediately, to be completed within 18 to 24 months.

Khayrat al-Sobtayn, the finance arm of Iraq’s Imam Hussein Shrine Foundation, will fund the project.

A further second and third phases of the airport project are planned, with total budget estimated to fetch $2bn, but subsequent work on the next phases will depend on demand.

The new airport will facilitate travel for millions of Shiite Muslims who travel to Karbala and Najaf, which they consider holy cities, every year. Most pilgrims are understood to come from Iran, Pakistan, India, Bahrain, Qatar, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and European countries.

Najaf has a small airport, formerly an air base, that caters to domestic and international flights.

Another airport that will cater mostly to cargo freight is planned in Diwaniyah, also in central Iraq. Kuwait’s Al-Nasriyah al-Kuwaitiah won the 45-year concession for the airport development, with the construction contract for the airport expected to be awarded in early 2017.