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Pictures Of Clerics On My Bedroom Wall

By Zeyad Kasim, Johnny Ryan


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his is a Basra street vendor who sells posters of Shia holy figures. About 60 percent of Iraqis are Shia, and about a third of that percentage are super-duper into it. These hardcore little gangs run the show in Iraq. They’re militant, young, puritanical, and xenophobic. They are also really into the old guys on the wall back there. These are their heroes and leaders.

Some of these role models are quiet curmudgeons who operate out of holes in the desert and are content to just send little notes to their followers every now and then. Others, like Al-Sadr, are behind the wheel of the tanker-truck-filled-with-dynamite that is the insurgency in Iraq. Those videos you saw on the internet of dudes shoving bombs into dead dogs to make IEDs? These guys are at the base of that bunny hole. They are very serious.

PHOTO AND CAPTIONS BY ZEYAD KASIM