Three months before the 2001 terrorist attacks, Rebwar Mohammed Abdul left this crowded city and moved to the mountains. He studied radical Islam and learned how to hurl grenades under the tutelage of a mullah accused of helping Al Qaeda set up sanctuaries in backwater villages of northern Iraq. The villages along the Iranian border, part of an autonomous region of Iraq under the control of ethnic Kurds, have since fallen into the grip of a Taliban-like rigidity. Music is forbidden. Satellite dishes are confiscated. Bars of Lux soap bearing the image of a bare-shouldered woman are yanked from market stalls. Lessons in religious piety proliferate in the mosques. Bearded men with knives and Kalashnikovs keep order in the streets. Full Story
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