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An Iraqi Shiite man carries a flag stained with the blood of men who wounded themselves to demonstrate their love to the Imam, as he walks along with tens of thousands of religious Iraqis on their way to the central city of Kerbala through a sand storm, April 19, 2003. Thousands of Iraqi Shi'ite Muslims beat their chests with their hands and waved black and green flags in a passionate celebration of a religious pilgrimage banned for a quarter century under Saddam Hussein. Men in robes and women draped in flowing black chadors streamed along narrow lanes and through palm tree orchards from towns and villages in southern Iraq to Najaf, from where they will go on to the city of Kerbala to mark one of the holiest events in the Shi'ite calendar, on April 23. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis
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