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From Omar to Hussain: Why Iraqis are changing their names

Intensification of Iraq's sectarian divide is forcing increasing numbers of people to change their names to avoid harassment and death.
Boys look at a destroyed car at the site of a car bomb attack in Habibia district in Baghdad, March 23, 2015. The bomb killed two people and wounded 15, police and medics said. REUTERS/Wissm al-Okili  - RTR4UHTV

BABIL, Iraq — The Popular Mobilization Units announced Labbayka Ya Hussain (At Your Service, Hussain), the military offensive to liberate Anbar province from Islamic State (IS) control, on May 25. The operation's name — invoking the killing of Imam Hussein ibn Ali in 680 and the call to take revenge on his killers — has raised a debate over the sectarian connotations of names in Iraq. Many Shiites consider IS members the grandchildren of Imam Hussein’s killers. The title has angered Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar, who find it inapppropriate for a military offensive designed to liberate a Sunni-majority province.

This episode is nothing new in Iraq. The use of religion and names with sectarian affiliations has been clearly reflected in the country's political and social life. Since the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003 following the US-led invasion, sectarian conflict has intensified. Because one can often tell a person's religious affiliation from his or her name, many Iraqis, Shiites and Sunnis alike, have changed them when they move to an area where they are in the minority. They do so to avoid possible harassment and even death in the event of sectarian violence, as happened in 2006 when sectarian killings escalated between Sunnis and Shiites. In Baghdad province, unidentified bodies were found daily.

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