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Will Someone Please Lend This Guy a Hand?
With a new Iraqi government being formed soon, how much power will the Sunnis be given?
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The celebration of Ashura, the shi'ite
day of mourning, was one of the first passionate displays of Iraqi
freedom after U.S.-led troops toppled Saddam Hussein's regime in the
spring of 2003. Saddam had banned the holiday, which commemorates the
battlefield death of Muhammad's grandson Hussein in A.D. 680. But tens
of thousands of pilgrims suddenly appeared in the streets of Karbala
after the coalition troops swept through, scourging themselves bloody in
the traditional attempt to replicate the pain of Hussein's death. In
2004 and 2005, a different sort of pain was imposed,...