Word: basra
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...picture of a genial Tom Cruise hangs above the door to the King beauty parlor in downtown Basra. For more than a decade, Sameer Abdalhadi has been snipping and shaving in the cramped salon with its display case of Dr. James Freckle and Acne Soap and Muscular Man perfume. On this February afternoon, he gives street vendor Mustafa Abdalsada a modish haircut and shaves his beard, leaving just a hint of designer stubble. Local men cultivate beards or luxuriant mustaches of the kind that make even despots look avuncular, but Abdalhadi encourages his clients to try something new. The barber...
...Remaking Basra is no small task. Caught in the cross fire of the Iran-Iraq war and Iraq's occupation and retreat from Kuwait, brutally punished for uprisings against Saddam Hussein only to see his tyranny give way to the mob rule of Shi'ite militias, both the city and the province of Basra have sustained deep wounds over three decades. British forces and government agencies based in Basra after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion expected to be received as liberators. But they failed to convince locals that they could deliver on their promises of reconstruction and development, leaving young...
...British lost the battle to stabilize Basra and spent four years dealing with an increasingly chaotic province. Things changed for the better only after March 2008, when local units of the Iraqi army - trained by the Brits and in control of the region from September 2007 - launched an operation to disperse the militias. Now violence has been replaced by an uneasy calm, and with Britain preparing to withdraw all but a small rump of its 4,100 troops by May 31, Basra is daring to dream of peace. (See pictures of Basra back in business...
...battleground to bustling municipality has been so rapid that it's natural to question whether a return to violence might not be as swift. Major General Andy Salmon, the Briton who commands the multinational forces in the region, believes that a tipping point has been reached. "I am confident Basra is not going to go back to the previous darkness," he says...
When Mahmoud voted in the regional elections in January, she opted for candidates she felt could offer "sustained security, jobs for young people and a better Iraq." Voting went off without violence in Basra (the only incident came when an overenthusiastic Iraqi policeman fired a gun into the air to encourage voters into a polling station). The bloc affiliated with Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, benefited from his action against the militias. In Basra, messages of national unity played better than did religious or sectarian appeals. "We have a new breed of politicians who can take Basra into...