The Lady often calls her Mom to check on her and see how she's doing. Last week she called a couple of times and her Dad said that she was not available! Finally at the third call she was told that her Mom has traveled to Iraq to see the holy shrines! She had told The Lady that she would be going and she advised her against that with all the conflict in Iraq and terrorism but she is an persistent old lady! For many Iranians the holy cities in Iraq are like their dreamland. They must visit them at least once in their life. I guess my Grandma took my father to Iraq some 60 years ago when he was a little kid, to see the holy shrine of Imam Hussein in city of Karbala. I have to check that whomever is left from the family!
In my personal opinion it was such a brave action from an old lady in her late 70's to do that. In The Lady's stupidity! Karbala as the holiest city in Iraq have been targeted a few times by Sunni militia and suicide attackers, I guess. This conflict of Shia and Sunni in Islam seems never ending. It's said that ISIS mostly comprises Sunnis but we know they have even Westerner fucked up fools among them. Some Sunnis are against ISIS. This in fact make the whole conflict more confusing for an outsider, particularly a Westerner who knows nothing all these different sect. Kurdish people who fight ISIS are mostly or maybe even all Sunnis as well! Many Sunnis don't even believe that Shia people are Muslim and if I want to write about this, I would be writing pages without stopping! During Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh region, Iran, a mostly Shia country supported Armenia a Christian country against A majority Sunni country of Azerbaijan! So you can imagine how fucked up things are.
Anyways my mother-in-law also traveled to Najaf, another holy city in south and Samara in north. I guess the most dangerous part must have been going to Samara which is not too far from ISIS forces. She's back now. The Lady was very mad at her and told me that she had a big fight with he over the phone as why she had done such a irresponsible act. I would talk to her to ask about the places she travel to. I guess her trip took a week of a little longer.
(Photo: This map shows the major towns and cities of Iraq and who controls them. ISF stands for Iraqi Security Forces, ISIS is know to everyone, Peshmerga is Kurdish armed forces and ISW is no army or armed unit. These are areas under study by the institute who has published this map. The map and the area under control different groups are changing but no significant change has been seen in the past few months or so unless exchange of a few small towns and villages between different groups)
No comments:
Post a Comment