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.


BAGHDAD -- Every time he drove, he feared this moment. Now, it was too late.

As Omar Ahmed neared the checkpoint, he recalled, he saw armed men dressed in black ordering passengers out of a minivan and checking their identity cards. Some were told to get back into the van. Others were taken to a Shiite mosque across the street. The gunmen clutched Glock pistols, normally used by the Iraqi police.

Ahmed, 30, was a Sunni Muslim. And he was in Shaab, a volatile, Shiite Muslim-dominated neighborhood. Questions raced through his mind: Was the mosque a base for a Shiite militia? Were the men members of a Shiite death squad?

So Ahmed set in motion a ritual that many Sunnis across a divided Baghdad now practice. He pushed in a cassette tape with Shiite religious songs and turned up the volume. He wrapped a piece of green cloth that he brought from the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, one of Shiite Islam's holiest sites, around his gearshift.

And he hung a small picture of Imam Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad and the most revered Shiite saint, from his rearview mirror.

To the world outside, he was now a Shiite.

Read the rest at the Washsington Post

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