Shave and a Haircut...

[NYC]

RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 9, No. 52, Part III, 18 March 2005

ISLAMISTS TARGETING BARBERS WHO CUT MEN'S HAIR, BEARDS IN BAGHDAD.
Islamic militants seeking to impose hard-line religious rule in parts
of the Iraqi capital are suspected in the deaths of at least 12
barbers in recent months after forbidding them to shave men's beards
or give Western-style haircuts, nytimes.com reported on 18 March. The
threats have prompted many barbers to comply with the demands, rather
than risk death. One barber told the website that he received a
handwritten threat with a bullet about three months ago. The note
warned that it was forbidden to shave men's beards or to give facial
massages, or the French-style haircuts known as "carre" and the
"spiky." The targeting of barbers is the latest attempt by Islamists
to impose their ideology on the population, nytimes.com reported,
pointing to the earlier targeting of liquor stores and Taliban-style
control over Al-Fallujah before U.S. forces entered the city last
year. Police in the Al-Durah neighborhood in Baghdad, where the
killings have been concentrated, told the website that they are
poorly equipped to deal with the threats and attacks. KR

[NYC]

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 17 - It was almost closing time in Sadiq Abdul Hussein's barbershop when a man in a black mask walked in, pulled out a pistol, and began spinning it on his finger, cowboy style.

The gunman was not after government officials or American collaborators. He had come because of the way Mr. Hussein cut hair.

Within seconds, the masked man opened fire, fatally wounding Mr. Hussein, 23, who lived long enough to describe the attack. The gunman also killed his partner and a customer.

In southern Baghdad, the hazards of life have come to this: gangs of militant Islamists are warning barbers that it is haram - forbidden - to shave men's beards or do Western-style haircuts. As many as 12 barbers have been killed, Iraqi officials say, including five in one day in late January. With little hope of police protection, most now refuse to offer the offending cuts, and have placed prominent signs in their front windows saying so.

On a recent afternoon, a barber who gave his name only as Ahmad stood over a customer, scissors in hand, glancing nervously out the front window of his shop. One of the two leather barber's chairs sat empty, and on the walls were mirrors and photographs of handsome young men with glistening newly cut hair, as in any Western salon.

"One morning about three months ago I came to the shop and found a handwritten note with a bullet," he said.

The note warned him that it was forbidden to shave men's beards, or to do facial massages or the French-style haircuts known as the "carré" and the "spiky." The note also warned him not to offer hiffafa, the Iraqi practice in which barbers use a length of thread to pull out the small hairs on the face and give a closer shave. If he ignored the warning, he would be killed, the note said.

The killings and threats are not the first efforts in Iraq to enforce a Taliban-style religious rule. In Falluja, armed mujahedeen ran an Islamic police state for several months before the American invasion last year, punishing beardless men and any women who dared to go out with their heads uncovered. In southern Iraq, Shiite militants have attacked liquor stores and sometimes killed those who ignored their threats.

In Baghdad, the killings and threats have been concentrated in Doura, a working-class neighborhood dominated by the four towering smokestacks of a power plant. Even in the generally lawless capital, Doura stands out as a war zone. At least a dozen police officers and government officials have been killed there in the past two weeks, usually by gunmen who drive up and spray their target with automatic weapons fire.

With so much violence, the police in Doura say there is little they can do to protect the barbers. They have investigated a few cases, and have found that some of the killers appear to be professionals who are paid as much as $200 a hit, said one police official, who refused to give his name out of fear that he would become a target. "The police get paid $140 a month," the officer said. "You need money to investigate these cases, and we don't have it."

At the main Doura police station, there is only one phone line, and it is unreliable, he added. Virtually the only information the police get comes from victims' families, who call or even walk into the station to tell their stories.

Sadiq Abdul Hussein's killing, which took place on Jan. 23, was unusual in that he remained conscious for 24 hours before he died, and he was able to describe the attack in detail to the police. "There were four men involved - two in the car outside, one watching on the street, and the killer - and there were witnesses. Nevertheless, the police say they have made no progress in the case.

Safa Abdul Hussein sat with his son through his last hours in the hospital.

"He said to me, 'Dad, will you help me?' " the father recalled. "I said, 'God will help you.' " The son - who had always been devoutly religious - then raised his hands above his chest and prayed, Mr. Hussein said.

Mr. Hussein, a 53-year-old welder whose beard is flecked with gray, broke into tears a few times as he told his son's story, burying his face in his hands. He sat wearing a gray welder's jumpsuit on a couch across from his wife and daughter in the family's small living room in Doura, a few blocks from where his son used to work.

At the hospital, doctors told Mr. Hussein that three other barbers in different parts of the city had been killed on the same day his son was killed, he said. There may well have been other killings, police officials say, but no one has the resources to keep count.

"I think these people are terrorists because the Koran says nothing about it being forbidden to shave beards," Mr. Hussein said. "This is not jihad. Jihad is defending your country, your honor, your faith."

Mr. Hussein, a Shiite Muslim, said he believed the killing might have been part of a broader campaign against Shiites. He said he was especially grateful that Sunni neighbors helped to arrange a funeral procession for Sadiq in Doura, some of them firing AK-47 rifles in the air as they walked down the street, in a common Iraqi custom. Mr. Hussein, a former tank commander in Saddam Hussein's army, had been afraid to hold a public celebration.

Even now he lives in constant fear. No one in Doura even dares to speak out against the barbershop killings: "There is silence about this in the mosques," Mr. Hussein said.

As he told the story of his son's death, an AK-47 rifle leaned near him against the living-room wall.

"The man who shot my son, do you think he would hesitate to kill me?" he asked.

Other barbers in Doura are frightened, too. On two recent trips through the neighborhood, many shops were empty, and most had signs in front saying they did not offer the offending cuts and shaves, which are very popular among Iraqi men.

Customers know about the threats, and no longer request beard shaves or anything of the kind, said the barber who gave his name as Ahmad. It has hurt business. His monthly take has gone from $300 to about $100, he said. Some barbers have closed up shop.

As for Safa Abdul Hussein, he has sworn to seek revenge, if he can find the man who killed his son."He broke my heart and I will break the heart of his father," he said. "I will not leave him alive even if I must bring heaven and earth together.

"There is a price to be paid for this: the Koran says an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/18/international/middleeast/18barber.html?pagewanted=print&position=

[Screw Hollywood]

Why don't we get the ACLU involved? Seems right up their alley!

[NYC]

Why don't we get the ACLU involved? Seems right up their alley!

Har har :add23:

[Screw Hollywood]

Har har :add23:
Think about it though. The very same people condemning our prescence in Iraq are for the most part staunch ACLU advocates. 'Course, I suppose they would have to become the ICLU.

[NYC]

Think about it though. The very same people condemning our prescence in Iraq are for the most part staunch ACLU advocates. 'Course, I suppose they would have to become the ICLU.

I don't debate on stupid points like this. I consider this a trolling post. This is not an arguement but a generalization :add20:

[Lone Star]

you'd never get away with that in "da hood!" :add23:

[NYC]

No one has any comment about the similarities to the Taliban? Or how fucking crazy it is to kill Barbers? No. Only Bullshit about ACLU. I'm really surprised no one said anything about this. So this is Freedom on the march? Killing fucking barbers? This to me is a pretty clear sign Iraq is in it pretty deep. Let's see someone spin this..... :add36:

[NYC]

Nothing to spin. The whackos need whacking is all. Or those witnesses need to do their thing and say something. Their silence says that they are either too afraid to say anything, in which case they are lost, or they agree with the killings. -Rod-

So we are losing the hearts and minds (as well as the lives) in Iraq don't you think?

[Bman]

In Bush's Iraq.. its STILL too dangerous to even get a haircut



http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=637955




Iraqi barbers in the firing line as fanatics target Western symbols
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
13 May 2005


In Iraq a barber works in a dangerous trade. Many have been murdered, beaten or forced to close their businesses by Islamic fanatics who accuse them of shaving off beards or giving Western-style haircuts.

"I did not take them seriously when they warned me against shaving off beards," lamented Mohammed Hassan al-Jebabi, once the owner of a barber's shop in a Sunni town on the outskirts of Baghdad. One day six men arrived in a pick-up truck. They shot into the air and took me away. After 12 days they dumped me back in front of my shop with my arms and legs broken. They said next time they would cut off my hands."

The fundamentalists, generally called Salafi or Wahabi in Iraq, believe it is un-Islamic for men to shave or for barbers to employ an ancient method of hair removal using a thread. Even trimming beards is seen as a crime against religion.

Most barber's shops in Sunni or mixed Shia and Sunni districts of Baghdad now carry a notice in the window saying: "We apologise to our customers but we are not shaving beards." It became common a month ago and ended a fortnight in which barber shops were shut after the murder of Abbas, a hairdresser in the Sha'ab district. Three men arrived outside his shop in a car. One went in and said: "We told you to stop." He then shot Abbas.

The killing persuaded Abdullah Farhan not to shave any more beards. He said: "Abbas was a friend of mine. They told me that Islam rejected the shaving off of beards, though I doubt it. Now our business is down 50 per cent." Many barbers have closed.

The dangerous decision on wearing or not wearing a beard underlines the chronic insecurity of life in Iraq today. Dangerous though it may be to shave off a beard it is by no means safe to wear one. While fundamentalists persecute the clean shaven, government forces are highly suspicious of excessive facial hair as a sign of extreme Islamic and insurgent sympathies. At an entrance to the Green Zone in Baghdad yesterday a woman was complaining vehemently to some soldiers about the arrest of her son. She said: "He was not religious or anything. He did not go the mosque and he did not have a beard."

It is not only barbers who are frightened. Zeidoun Kamal Abdullah in Haifa Street in central Baghdad says he has not been threatened. But a friend of his called Khalid from the same district was shot dead because he shaved beards and gave short-back-and-sides haircuts which in Iraq is know as 'the marine haircut'. Mr Abdullah now has the appropriate notice in his window but even before he put it up he said: "Customers reacted strongly if I offered to shave their beards asking if I wanted to get them killed."

Many barbers have closed down and others complain that business is bad. "Customers won't come because they are frightened of being murdered," says Mr Abdullah. "We are offering to shave them in their homes." Ali Saheb, another barber in the same shop, said he owned his own business until a few months ago but two men on motorcycles threw grenades into it. He works part time as a taxi driver because he makes very little money cutting men's hair.

It is strange that barbers' shops should have become a symbol of secularism and Western cultural norms for fundamentalist Sunnis. Shops selling alcohol have long been closed in Sunni or poor Shia districts. They are now concentrated in better-off areas. Iraqis used to drink alcohol in public until the 1990s, when Saddam Hussein banned its sale in restaurants.

Violence continued across Iraq yesterday. A car bomb, one of four in the capital, in a market killed 17 people and wounded 65. An angry crowd attacked police and journalists at the scene. Another suicide bomber attacked an American convoy on a highway in western Baghdad. Two other car bombs blew up in the oil city of Kirkuk.

Insurgents are focussing on assassinating senior officials. Yesterday they shot and killed Brig Gen Iyad Imad Mahdi as he drove to work at the Ministry of Defence and Col Fadhil Mohammed Mobarak as he went to the Interior Ministry where he headed the police control room. In the west of the country the US Marines have reportedly lost seven killed in an offensive against insurgents in towns and villages on the Euphrates close to the Syrian border

[Boomer]

Think about it though. The very same people condemning our prescence in Iraq are for the most part staunch ACLU advocates. 'Course, I suppose they would have to become the ICLU.
We invaded Iraq to:

Seize Saddam's WMD (er, no)
Smash al Quaeda (ah, nope)
Stop the killing (OK, OK)
Spread Freedumb 'an D'mockercy (well....)

Preserve, protect and defend Iraqi men’s inalienable right to get "carres" and the "spikys" at the barbershop of their choice

RIGHT ON!!!

[pambo]

Only the diehard, party line toeing neocons are still refusing to admit that the Iraq adventure is an absolute disaster. Thinking conservatives are starting to realize that their party (well, both parties for that matter) have been hijacked by multinational interest groups.

For most people, the rhetoric wore, or is starting to wear thin.
But for some, I think it would shatter their world to actually see the truth, which benefits nobody (including the brainwashed), except fatcats.

[Imperfectionist]

The funny thing about beards and the Islamic extremists is that they claim there is some holy law forbidding the cutting of beards. However, there is absolutely nothing in the Qu'ran that mentions anything about beards. It's kind of made up... kind of like the Bible explicitly forbidding abortion.

[Bman]

The funny thing about beards and the Islamic extremists is that they claim there is some holy law forbidding the cutting of beards. However, there is absolutely nothing in the Qu'ran that mentions anything about beards. It's kind of made up... kind of like the Bible explicitly forbidding abortion.


A better example would be the fundamentalist protestant christian groups that view the consumption of alcohol or the smoking of tobacco to be "sins"

Bman

[Rightwingnut]

The funny thing about beards and the Islamic extremists is that they claim there is some holy law forbidding the cutting of beards. However, there is absolutely nothing in the Qu'ran that mentions anything about beards. It's kind of made up... kind of like the Bible explicitly forbidding abortion.

Surprised?

Extremists in both religions excel at creative and selective interpratation of thier "good book". I despise any culture of religion.

[Imperfectionist]

A better example would be the fundamentalist protestant christian groups that view the consumption of alcohol or the smoking of tobacco to be "sins"

Bman
Yeah, that would be a better example.

RWN:

Am I surprised? Not really.

[ReallyRotten]

Next on their list they will be killing telemarketers.....

[Bman]

Next on their list they will be killing telemarketers.....


Who would be opposed to that?

[OldGit]

Think about it though. The very same people condemning our prescence in Iraq are for the most part staunch ACLU advocates. 'Course, I suppose they would have to become the ICLU.

Maybe you missed the point. This kind of thing never happened there before 2003...

Go on, tell me that shite about rape rooms and murder rooms again... There've ben 500 deaths already this month from random bombings. Great situation we've brought them...

Moral of the post:

Wise men wait, and watch where fools rush in without any real understanding of the consequence of tampering with a society.

I foretold all this in the lead up to the war.

[NYC]

In Bush's Iraq.. its STILL too dangerous to even get a haircut
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=637955

Wow good memory BMAN! The return of the Shave and a Haircut thread! :happy_01:

[OldGit]

So we are losing the hearts and minds (as well as the lives) in Iraq don't you think?


Did you mean to use the present tense there NYC?

[Boomer]

Supposedly, the 9/11 guys were coached to stay clean shaven, and drink alcohol, so they would blend in better.

[Bman]

Supposedly, the 9/11 guys were coached to stay clean shaven, and drink alcohol, so they would blend in better.


Yeah.. that's why I do it too

:food_03: :food_02: :food_10:

[Alli]

Yeah.. that's why I do it too

:food_03: :food_02: :food_10:
Glad to know I'm not the only one.. :food_02:

[Bman]

Glad to know I'm not the only one.. :food_02:


Its a 'Burgh' thing


Hey.. gimme an IC Light

http://www.tommylang.com/2004-09-06/IMG00033.jpg

[Boomer]

Its a 'Burgh' thing


Hey.. gimme an IC Light

http://www.tommylang.com/2004-09-06/IMG00033.jpg
WOW, IC. I remember they were still using steel cans when I moved to Pittsburgh in 1978. Is it still in business?

[Bman]

Hard work??

Hard work is trying to get a haircut in Baghdad!




Copyright 2005 Agence France Presse
All Rights Reserved

Agence France Presse -- English

June 27, 2005 Monday 8:24 AM GMT

Three die in Iraq barbershop attack as Rumsfeld warns on insurgency

BAGHDAD June 27



Three people were killed in a Baghdad barbershop slaying, adding to the inexorable rise in Iraqi deaths after US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld confirmed contacts with rebels in a bid to stem the carnage but warned that the insurgency could go on for years.

Gunmen opened fire on the shop late Sunday, killing the barber, a police officer and a nine-year-old boy in the bustling district of Al-Jadidah where Sunni Arabs, Iraqi Shiites and Christians live together, an interior ministry source said.

The attackers then placed an explosive charge and blew the shop up before making their escape.

Earlier in the day, six members of a commando unit and a deputy police chief were gunned down in separate incidents in Baghdad.

On Monday an Iraqi man died and his wife was injured when two homemade bombs exploded next to their car as they drove past a local town hall in Adamiyah, northern Baghdad, an interior ministry source said.

Meanwhile, Baghdad International Airport reopened after a shutdown caused by a dispute between Iraqi officials and the London-based group that handles security for passengers and baggage.

In the United States, Rumsfeld confirmed a British newpaper report that US officials had met with insurgents in a bid to stem the violence in Iraq.

Rumsfeld said Iraq's insurgency could last years, but that Washington would hand over to Iraqis the job of rounding up the rebels.

"The first thing I would say about the meetings is they go on all the time," he said on US television.

"Second, the Iraqis have a sovereign government. They will decide what their relationships with various elements of insurgents will be. We facilitate those from time to time," he said.

The Pentagon chief said Iraqi forces, not foreign troops, would have to defeat the insurgency.

"That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years."

Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi said Sunday that he doubted that contacts between US officials and insurgent groups would stem the unrelenting violence in the country.

"This is not the first time they meet with these elements. They have met with them before," Abdel Mahdi told AFP.

The deadly violence has gathered pace despite the installation of a new government headed by Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari in May following the the country's first democratic elections in half a century.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Al-Qaeda Organization in the Land of Two Rivers, in a statement whose authenticity could not be verified, warned militants against contacts with the "enemies of God" and dismissed as lies US contacts with Iraq insurgents.

The leaders of other extremist groups the Islamic Army in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna also denied any negotiations with US officials.

Around 1,725 US military personnel have been killed since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, adding to pressure on Washington over its continued involvement in Iraq.

On Sunday, at least 25 people were killed in a trio of bomb blasts targeting Iraqi police or army bases in and around the northern city of Mosul Sunday, bringing the total death toll from attacks over the day to at least 40.

The bulk of the city's 5,000 officers quit in November after a spate of assaults and since then US-backed Iraqi soldiers have taken the lead role in security while the local police force is rebuilt.

At the airport Monday, an Iraqi Airways flight had arrived from Amman but the return leg was delayed for unknown reasons.

Electricity was sporadic and air conditioning cut off, causing tempers to rise along with the temperature, an AFP correspondent said.

Jaafari, meanwhile, was due to hold talks in London with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose government is the top US ally in Iraq. The meeting follows the Iraqi premier's visit to Washington where he met US President George W. Bush.

[NYC]

Toughest job in Iraq? Barber!

[Imperfectionist]

Yeah, the whole thing with Muslim extremists killing people over facial hair (or lack of it) is another example of how extremists will bend a religion to their own will. No where in the Q'uran does it mention any law about facial hair

[Gawzi]

No where in the Q'uran does it mention any law about facial hair

it's in the sunnah

[Bman]

Shit...... sounds like being a barber in Asia is one DANGEROUS JOB

This guy was "accidently shot" by soldiers getting their hair cut... Apparently the guy's machine gun 'went off'. The barber's death triggered a riot , where the rioters beat to death a riot cop!


August 4, 2005 Thursday 11:33 AM GMT


Sri Lankan barber shot dead cutting hair, triggers street protests
COLOMBO Aug 4



A barber giving a hair cut was shot dead when an automatic assault rifle belonging to a government soldier in northern Sri Lanka Thursday went off accidentally, officials said.

Three soldiers visited the barber shop in Innuvil on the Jaffna peninsula when one of their automatic assault rifles fired accidentally, killing the barber as he was cutting the hair of a trooper, officials said.

Authorities said the killing was unintentional.

But residents of the former Tamil separatist rebel stronghold that now is controlled by government forces took to the streets in protest, prompting police to call out anti-riot squads.




and.. the follow up:


Agence France Presse -- English

August 4, 2005 Thursday 2:12 PM GMT

Sri Lankan policeman killed by mob after barber's death
COLOMBO Aug 4



A senior police officer was murdered by a mob in northern Sri Lanka Thursday after a barber giving a hair cut was accidentally shot dead, police chief Chandra Fernando said.

Police Superintendent Charles Wijewardena was investigating the killing of the barber when a Tamil mob turned against him, military officials said.

"The mob had blocked his vehicle and when he got off, he was abducted," Fernando told AFP. "We tried to secure his release through ceasefire monitors, but now we have found his body."

Wijewardena was trying to investigate the shooting of the barber, who the authorities said was killed accidentally while giving a hair cut to a soldier at Inuvil in the northern peninsula of Jaffna.

Three soldiers visited the barber shop when one of their automatic assault rifles fired accidentally, killing the barber as he was cutting the hair of a trooper, officials said earlier in the day.

However, residents of the former Tamil separatist rebel stronghold that is now controlled by government forces took to the streets in protest, prompting police to call out anti-riot squads.

Fernando said they had complained to the Scandinavian truce monitoring team about the abduction of the police officer in the hope that his release could be secured.

However, Wijewardena became the most senior police officer to be killed since government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels entered into a truce in February 2002.

There was no immediate reaction either from the rebels or the government over the killing which came as Norway's Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen arrived here to review the stalled peace process.

[stewey]

If I were in charge, wed cut all diplomatic ties with countries like Sri Lanka where extremism is so rampant. Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sudan, etc...

This is why I didn't donate a cent to the Tsunami relief.

[Bman]

Despite the heroic efforts of George W. Bush, to make the world "safe for a shave", Iraq remains the worlds most dangerous place for those seeking a trip to the barber.



All Rights Reserved
February 21, 2006 Tuesday 1:01 PM GMT

Iraqi Bombers Target Hair Dressers

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD Iraq


Britain's foreign secretary told Iraqi leaders Tuesday they must form a national unity government free of domination by a single group, reinforcing U.S. pressure on political leaders to put aside ethnic and sectarian differences in the interest of the nation.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the results of the Dec. 15 parliamentary election showed the Iraqi people want a "broad government of national unity" to bring together "all the different elements" of Iraqi society.

"It is a crucial moment today for the people of Iraq," Straw told reporters alongside President Jalal Talabani. "The international community, particularly those of us who played a part in liberating Iraq, obviously have an interest in a prosperous and stable and democratic Iraq."

Straw said the election results showed that Iraqis want a government where "no party, no ethnic or religious grouping can dominate."

In the latest violence, seven people were killed and at least 27 wounded Tuesday in a series of bombings, some targeting liquor stores and women's hair dressers in Baqouba, according to police.

Shortly after midnight, eight hair dressers were blown up in one street by extremists who have broadened their targets beyond Americans, Iraqi security forces and government officials. The blasts caused huge damage but no casualties, according to the Diyala police.

Explosions also hit three liquor stores, killing one owner and wounding three other people, said police in the city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

An Iraqi Cabinet minister escaped injury when a bomb exploded near her convoy in eastern Baghdad, police said. Three security guards were wounded. The attack against Suhaila Abed Jaafar, minister of migration, occurred as she was traveling along the Mohammed al-Qassim highway, police Lt. Mohammed Khayoon said.

The British official arrived in Baghdad late Monday after the United States' ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, delivered a blunt warning that Iraqi leaders risk losing American support unless they establish a national unity government with the police and the army out of the hands of religious parties.

There is growing international concern over the direction of the talks among Iraq's Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political parties as they attempt to put together a government following the December elections. Those talks, which began in earnest this month, have snagged because of deep divisions among the three groups.

The United States, Britain and other coalition members have a strong stake in the talks, believing that a national unity government is essential to their strategy of handing over security to Iraqi soldiers and police so that international troops can begin to go home this year.

One key issue is control of the ministries of Defense, which runs the army, and Interior, which manages the police. Sunni Arabs have accused the Shiite-run Interior Ministry of widespread human rights abuses, including kidnappings and murder.

Khalilzad told reporters Monday that those two ministries must be run by "people who are nonsectarian, broadly acceptable and who are not tied to militias" of political parties. Otherwise, he warned "Iraq faces the risk of warlordism that Afghanistan went through for a period."

A coalition of Shiite religious parties won 130 of the 275 seats in the new Iraqi parliament. Although they have agreed in principle to a unity government, Shiite leaders insist their strong showing in the election gives them the democratic right to control key levers of power.

A Kurdish alliance won 53 seats and two Sunni Arab blocs together took 55 seats a major increase over Sunni representation in the outgoing parliament. Iraqis have until mid-May to form a new government, but U.S. and Iraqi officials warn the process could take longer because of political differences.

Mistrust and bitterness among the communities run deep. Much of it is rooted in oppression of Shiites and Kurds by Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime and fanned by the current insurgency. Shiites and Kurds dominate the security services and most of the insurgents are Sunni Arabs.

[emtae]

In China you can get a blow job at your friendly neighborhood barber shop.....I guess that's out of question in Iraq too now.

and I guess waxing girls' legs is out too!

[Bman]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0702130122feb13,1,3957374.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed


Barbers get threat in Pakistan


By Habibullah Khan
Associated Press

February 13, 2007

KHAR, Pakistan -- Suspected Islamic radicals have issued a warning to barbers in a Pakistani border town not to shave off or cut their customers' beards, saying it offends Islam, residents said Monday.

Pamphlets with the warnings were found at several shops in Inayat Kalay in Pakistan's Bajur tribal region near the Afghan border, said Bacha Khan, a barber in the market town.

"Barbers! Correct yourselves," read the handwritten, Pashtu-language notes, one of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

"Any barber shop where acts against Shariah [Islamic law]--shaving or cutting of beards--are seen, are given a final warning to stop this anti-Shariah work and if they do not stop, they should take responsibility for whatever harm they come to," it said.

The pamphlets were unsigned. However, Khan said he believed the warnings were from mujahedeen, or holy warriors, a term often used to describe Islamic militants.

He said two dozen barbers had responded by posting notices in their shops asking customers not to insist on getting a shave.

"We do not want to come to harm," Khan said. "If this work is against Shariah, we will stop it."

The warning echoed a decree issued under Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime ordering all men to grow beards, and it could reinforce concern that Pakistan's border areas are undergoing a "Talibanization" because of the presence of militants and radical preachers.

Security officials say Taliban and other militants suspected of attacks on Afghan and foreign troops on the other side of the border are active in Bajur.

Many Taliban fled to Pakistan when U.S.-led forces drove them out of Afghanistan in late 2001. Before their ouster, Taliban vice squads roamed the streets and beat those suspected of trimming their beard in the harsh enforcement of Islamic law.
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

[Ono]

Neanderthals