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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)
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The friend asked Khalaf to pull out his blue cellphone with its latmiya ring tone. Then, he beamed over the video with a Bluetooth device.
"When my friend left, I cried because I remembered my cousin," Khalaf said.
"I thought, 'This is what happened to him.' "
Khalaf kept the video in his cellphone. It had become another piece of his disguise.
A Song and a Blessing
At the checkpoint, one of the armed men in black ordered Ahmed to get out of his Honda. His family sat in silence, veiled in fear. The man looked inside the car and spotted the green cloth and the picture of Imam Ali. A Shiite religious song flowed through the speakers.
"Where are you coming from?" he asked Ahmed.
"From a ziyara ," he replied in a southern Shiite accent, using the word for a visit to a shrine.
"God bless you. Go fast," the armed man replied.
Ahmed stepped back into his Honda and drove away.
"I felt like life came back to me," Ahmed recalled.
