| Page 3 of 4 < > |
At Checkpoints in Baghdad, Disguise Is a Lifesaving Ritual
When approaching a Shiite checkpoint, Khalaf puts a photo of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on display. Some Sunnis also hang pictures of Imam Ali, the most revered saint in Shiite Islam.
(Sudarsan Raghavan - Twp)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Tip No. 8: Learn how to curse Yazid, the Sunni caliph whose army killed Imam Hussein in the 7th century.
And if all else fails, tip No. 11 reads: "It is okay to claim that you were a Sunni but you were later 'enlightened' and became a Shiite." And tip No. 12 reminds Sunnis to practice all 11 tips well -- and to pray in a husseiniya, or Shiite mosque.
Azzawi's cousin keeps a latmiya -- sad Shiite chants about the 12 imams -- in his collection of ring tones in his cellphone. He activates it in majority-Shiite neighborhoods. Other Sunnis have images of Imam Ali or Imam Hussein on their cellphone screens.
Haki Ismael is a Shiite guard at a government ministry. He lives in Amiriyah, a mostly Sunni neighborhood. Every time he left, he said, he used his fake Sunni identity card. But one recent morning, he was kidnapped by members of the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia aligned with firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. They thought he was a Sunni, he recalled.
So Ismael spoke with an accent typical of Shiites from the south. The militiamen began to relax. They released him.
Judging by Appearance
Ghassan Khalaf, a Sunni shopkeeper, was saved by his short hair. In June, Shiite policemen stopped his black BMW at a checkpoint in the mostly Shiite neighborhood of Bayaa. They saw the picture of Sadr near the speedometer and Imam Ali on the windshield. But their eyes zeroed in on Khalaf's cousin, Ahmad Jabbir. He had a long, bushy beard and a white tribal head scarf, worn by many religious Sunnis.
The policemen asked him for his ID. He did not have a fake one. Worse, his tribal name was al-Douri, the same as Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who was a top deputy to Saddam Hussein. The policemen pushed Jabbir into their vehicle and ordered Khalaf to leave.
A few days later, Jabbir's corpse turned up in the morgue, Khalaf said. It had 24 holes from an electric drill; the head and beard were shaved.
Two weeks ago, a Shiite friend visited Khalaf's home, where photos of Sadr and Imam Ali are prominently displayed. Like most neighbors, he thought Khalaf was Shiite. He pulled out his cellphone and asked Khalaf:
"Did you see the last operation the heroes did?"
Then, Khalaf recalled, the friend played a grainy one-minute, 40-second video of armed men in black dragging a corpse by its shirt and dumping it in a sandy lot. "God help us get rid of the Salafis and Wahhabis," Khalaf told him afterward, referring to two Sunni branches.
"They think I am one of them," Khalaf explained later. "If you make a mistake, they'll find out you have some sympathy for Sunnis. They will kill me."
