Shop Bread Display

I wanted to share it with you, because it is extraordinary: It shows how al-Qaeda is being defeated in Iraq, and, with al-Qaeda, insanity:

Coffee shops and restaurants, as well as other favorite meeting spots like the corniche overlooking the Tigris River in downtown Mosul, have . . . buzzed with activity since the anti-al-Qaeda operation got under way.

All across the city, residents have taken on a new lease on life.

Streets are thronged with pedestrians, and market stalls brim anew with fruit and vegetables — including tomatoes and cucumbers displayed side by side in clear defiance to the Islamists who had banned this as sexually provocative.

The local Iraqi bread known as “sammoun” — also prohibited by the militants, who argued that it did not exist in the time of the Prophet Mohammed — can now be found again in bakeries.