Ramadan is upon this troubled nation again -- a holy month when pious Muslims seek to cleanse their souls and come together. But in Iraq, many fear the holy season will bring more than usual violence and divisions.
Muslim insurgents fighting to drive out US-led foreign forces from Iraq used the start of Ramadan last year to sharply increase attacks, a move possibly fostered by the conviction that to die fighting a non-Muslim enemy during the month earns a special place in heaven.
The first day of Ramadan last year was one of the bloodiest since the insurgency broke out around May last year. Four near-simultaneous suicide bombers struck the international Red Cross headquarters in Baghdad and three police stations across the city, leaving at least 40 people dead and 200 wounded.
It is impossible to tell whether the insurgents, many of whom are Muslim fundamentalists, will do the same again this year.
However, the number of attacks in Baghdad and areas to the north and west of the capital, where the 17-month insurgency is most intense, have increased in recent weeks, with car bombs, rocket and mortar attacks and assassinations almost daily fare.
Under Islam, Ramadan is one of the four "haram" months when fighting is discouraged. However, many Muslim scholars argue that an occupying army should get no respite from mujahedeen -- or holy warriors -- even during Ramadan.
"It's forbidden to launch a foreign conquest during Ramadan, but it is not prohibited to fight an occupier," said Abdul-Salam al-Kobeisi, a senior cleric from the Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunni group suspected of maintaining links to some insurgent groups.
"In fact, Iraqis are duty bound to fight ... since the American forces are the attackers and they are the defenders," he told reporters.
Significantly, Islam's first major battle against its enemies in Arabia was fought during Ramadan in 624 AD, when a small army led by the Prophet Muhammad routed a force three times its size, a historical anecdote that remains a source of inspiration for Muslim armies ever since.
It's during Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, that Muslims believe God began to reveal the holy book the Koran to Muhammad more than 1,400 years ago. During the month, Muslims refrain from food, drink, smoking and sex from dawn to dusk -- an exercise designed to teach them to do away with worldly pleasures, experience the deprivation of the poor and bring them closer to God.
Muslims spend long hours in mosques during Ramadan, often to perform a special all-night prayer known as "taraweeh." They also attempt to read the entire Koran during the month.
Performing the dawn prayers at important or ancient mosques is a ritual that many Iraqis insist on during Ramadan. But many have been forced by the tenuous security to make do instead with places of worship in their neighborhood.
Unlike the festivities and conspicuous consumption that mark Ramadan in places like Egypt and Lebanon, the month has taken on an austere character in Iraq since sweeping sanctions were slapped on the country for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Explosions
Meanwhile, at least eight civilians died in two explosions yesterday inside the heavily-fortified Green Zone compound in Baghdad that serves as headquarters for the Iraqi government and foreign representatives, a US military spokesman said.
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