Iraq: Ashoura holiday peaceful

For the first time since the April 2003 invasion, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites on Thursday celebrated their most important religious holiday without suffering a terrorist attack. Waving flags and beating themselves with chains, Iraq’s majority Shiites gathered around major shrines for Ashoura, which marks the death of Imam Hussein, the seventh-century martyr and grandson of the prophet Muhammad. As many as 2 million pilgrims and Iraqis crowded the city of Karbala, Hussein’s burial place, security officials reported.

From Herald news services