<div class='snap_preview'>Ahmed Ibraim remembers the dark years.
He remembers his friends and neighbors while they were rounded up by Saddam Hussein’s regime. He remembers the air raid sirens blaring at 3 am, and the frantic rush for cover, and, especially, the awful roar of the occasional nearby explosions. He remembers hating America for it all.
A Sunni, Mr. Ahmed today lives in a neighborhood that was, in many ways, spared from Saddam’s dark curtain, and, somehow, most of the bombs Saddam’s regime provoked.
Today, his once dusty neighborhood is replete with schools, busy grocery stores and even an occasional Starbucks. His three children have all passed entrance exams for universities run by a group known as the Hijric Collective, a Muslim group that has taken over management of the educational system. Some Iraqis say the group is tainted by American imperialism and Zionism. Some Americans feel it is too dominated by remants of the Wahhabi sect. At any rate,the Hijric is so well financed, and most importantly, housed by Imams, paid off or not, that most of the complaints are mere utterances within the confines of local coffee houses.
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