From the roof of his house, Ali Hassan, a 30-year-old Sunni history professor, points to Samarra’s famed al-Askari mosque, one of the most revered Shiite sites in Iraq. Sunlight glints off the shrine’s golden dome, casting rays towards another side of Samarra — a downtrodden district behind gray blast walls that have split the city for the past 15 years.
“The wall has become our Berlin Wall,” says Hassan, shaking his head. “It was built to protect the mosque after it became a flashpoint for sectarian slaughter. But it has separated the town for years. Now it’s time to go back to normal.”
