What the hell are they doing?

SHIITE Muslims around the world yesterday mourned the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson 1,300 years ago at the climax of Ashura, the main event in their calendar. In countries from Lebanon to Pakistan, Shiites gathered to commemorate the death of Iman Hussein, with men and boys beating and cutting themselves to imitate the suffering he underwent. Iman Hussein was killed in battle at Kerbala, now in Iraq, in AD680. Two million pilgrims gathered in the modern-day city of Kerbala. In Baghdad's Kadhimiya district, thousands of emotional pilgrims seemed mesmerised as a storyteller with a loudspeaker described how Hussein was killed. He was decapitated in a battle with the army of Caliph Yazid and his head was taken to Damascus, the seat of Yazid's Sunni Ummayad dynasty. "Beat your heads. Beat your heads to show his agony," said the storyteller, as he described how enemy soldiers grabbed Hussein's beard just before decapitating him. These are the Shiites. Our allies in Iraq.