The celebration of ashura, the shi'ite day of mourning, was one of the first passionate displays of Iraqi freedom after U.S.-led troops toppled Saddam Hussein's regime in the spring of 2003. Saddam had banned the holiday, which commemorates the battlefield death of Muhammad's grandson Hussein in A.D. 680. But tens of thousands of pilgrims suddenly appeared in the streets of Karbala after the coalition troops swept through, scourging themselves bloody in the traditional attempt to replicate the pain of Hussein's death.
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