Swapping bullets for ballots

by Mohanad Hage Ali April 3, 2009

written by Mohanad Hage Ali April 3, 2009

Samarra, 78 miles north of Baghdad, is more than just a city: it is an indicator of tension between Iraq’s Sunnis and Shiites. The majority of Samarra’s population is Sunni, but they make their living out of Shiite pilgrims who come to visit the shrines of two holy imams. On February 22, 2006, those shrines were bombed in an Al Qaeda attack that ignited a bloody sectarian conflict leaving tens of thousands of people killed. What happened on that day divided both cities and neighborhoods into Shiite and Sunni enclaves. Today Samarra is conveying another sign. The city’s mayor announced last week that its holy sites are receiving 15,000 Shiite pilgrims every day. This was a good indicator of how the security situation is improving in Iraq. But the effects of the sectarian reconciliation are not only visible in Iraq’s security; they have also reshuffled the political priorities in the

Mohanad Hage Ali

Mohamad Hage Ali is the deputy director for research at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut where his work focuses on the shifting geopolitics and Islamist groups after the Arab Uprisings. Hage Ali teaches politics at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and has lectured at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. In his work, Hage Ali focuses on Levant politics, and has published a book titled “Nationalism, Transnationalism and Political Islam: Hizbullah’s Institutional Identity” in 2017, and co-edited “A Restless Revival: Political Islam After the 2011 Uprisings”. Prior to Carnegie, Hage Ali worked as a reporter at al-Hayat newspaper in London, and as an editor in chief of NOW Arabic in Beirut, where his work focused on political Islam and Iraq.

Swapping bullets for ballots

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