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DHAKA — Mosques and market streets teem with evening crowds tempted by the scent of syrupy sweets and hefty rice plates, as more than half a billion Muslims across southern Asia break the day’s Ramadan fast.

The Islamic holy month began over the weekend and during that time believers abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, and sexual relations between sunrise and sunset.

The fast is conceived as a spiritual struggle against the seduction of earthly pleasures — but for the nightly “iftar” meal, festive meals traditionally bring families together and there is intense social activity.

The centuries-old Chawkbazar market in Bangladesh is a traditional centre for evening meet-ups during Ramadan, with hundreds of makeshift food stalls selling traditional grilled meats and delicacies.

Huge crowds returned to the neighbourhood on Sunday for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic put a pin in large public gatherings.

“I am so happy to see people here,” said Ramzan Ali, who has sold barbequed quail at the market for around four decades. “The last two years were painful.”

Traditional dishes of pakoras and lentil soup were on offer alongside more esoteric fare, like kebabs made from the meat of bull genitalia and the ever-popular fried goat brain served to accompany roast meats and vegetables.

“It felt so good to come here again,” said businessman Mohammad Ashrafuddin.

“Without Chawkabazar’s iftar items, I feel like my Ramadan isn’t complete.”

Pakistan’s Muslims are also basking in the opportunity to again break fast in company and out from under a COVID crowd, with the government lifting restrictions on public gatherings weeks earlier.

Mosques have been lit up with lanterns and nearby markets are bustling as crowds stop for fried sweet pastries and stock up on meals to distribute to the poor.

In India, crowds flock to stalls which line a street in the shadow of New Delhi’s resplendent Jama Masjid, one of the country’s largest houses of worship, snacking on wrinkled dates and seasonal sweet buns baked with infusions of coconut or cherries.

Subdued celebrations 

More subdued evening gatherings are under way in Afghanistan, where people are still reckoning with an acute humanitarian crisis in the wake of last year’s US withdrawal and the Taliban’s return to power.

The most popular fast-breaking local dish is Kabuli pulao — rice sprinkled with saffron and mixed with dry fruits, especially black raisins.

Special spicy pickles and jalebis — a calorific sphere of deep-fried batter soaked in sugary syrup — are also relished by families during their evening meals after breaking the dawn-to-dusk fast.

But many have been forced to keep their purchases to a bare minimum this year on account of the country’s food shortage.

“For the first time I’m seeing that food prices have risen so much in Ramadan,” Kabul resident Shahbuddin told AFP on the weekend.

“People were expecting that in an Islamic country prices would drop during Ramadan, but that has not happened.”

Islam is the second-largest religion in south Asia after Hinduism, and the region is home to around a third of the faith’s adherents.

Ramadan is sacred to Muslims because tradition says the Koran was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed during that month.

The global observance draws to a close with the Eid Al Fitr festival, a celebration marked with prayers and feasts.

TRIPOLI — With the arrival of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in war-scarred Libya, a group of volunteers work around the clock to restore old or damaged copies of the Koran.

Khaled Al Drebi, one of Libya’s best-known restorers of Islam’s holy book, is among the artisans who arrive at a Tripoli workshop daily to meet the needs of the influx of customers during Ramadan.

For Muslims, Ramadan is a month of spirituality, where a daily dawn-to-dusk fast is accompanied with prayer and acts of charity — often translating into a surge in sales of Korans.

“The purchase of new Korans traditionally increases before the month of Ramadan, but this has recently changed in Libya,” Drebi told AFP.

For many, tradition has been interrupted by an increase in the cost of Korans, especially “since the state stopped printing” them in Libya, he added.

The North African nation has endured more than a decade of conflict, leaving many of its institutions in disarray and dealing a major blow to the oil-rich country’s economy.

“The cost of buying [Korans] has increased, and so the turnout for restoring old Korans has gained unprecedented popularity,” Drebi said.

Compared to the cost of a new Koran — at more than $20 depending on the binding — Drebi’s workshop charges just a few dollars to restore one.

‘Indescribable joy’ 

But cost is not the only factor — for many, the older copies also has a sentimental value.

“There is a spiritual connection for some customers,” Drebi said, adding that many choose to preserve Korans passed on from relatives. “Some say this Koran has the smell of my grandfather or parents.”

At the back of the room, Abdel Razzaq Al Aroussi works on sorting through thousands of Korans based on their level of deterioration.

“The restoration of Korans with limited damage takes no more than an hour, but for those that are damaged, they could require two or more hours,” Aroussi said.

They “must be undone, restored and then bound”, he said — a meticulous process that requires a great deal of “time and concentration”.

Mabrouk Al Amin, a supervisor at the workshop, said the restoration process “requires a good number of artisans”.

“Working with the book of God is very enjoyable and we don’t get bored... there is an indescribable joy in this work,” he said.

Restorers say they have repaired a staggering half a million Korans since the workshop opened in 2008, and more than 1,500 trainees have graduated from 150 restoration workshops.

Women restorers 

In recent years, more and more women have been joining the ranks of the volunteer restorers.

“A large number of women were trained on restoring the holy Koran and today they have their own workshops,” Drebi said.

One female restorer, Khadija Mahmoud, has even held training sessions for blind women.

“We would not have been able to think of doing this... were it not for this capable woman,” Drebi added.

For Mahmoud, who trains women at a workshop in Zawiya, 45 kilometres  west of Tripoli, restoring Korans in a women’s workshop allows them to work comfortably and at a faster pace.

She added that the restoration work has given many women a meaningful way to fill their “spare time”.

“A large segment of trainees and restorers are retirees,” she said. “For them, there is nothing better than spending their spare time in the service of the Koran.”

BAGHDAD — Iraq, once synonymous with conflict and chaos, is becoming a land of opportunity for Lebanese job-seekers fleeing a deep economic crisis back home.

Akram Johari is one of thousands who fled Lebanon's tumbling currency and skyrocketing poverty rates.

Last year, he packed his bags and boarded a plane from Beirut to Baghdad, using social media to search for opportunities.

"I didn't have enough time to look for a job in the Gulf," the 42-year-old said, explaining why he eschewed the more traditional path for those seeking economic opportunities in the region.

With its relative proximity and visas on arrival for Lebanese, the Iraqi capital seemed a good option.

"I had to take quick action, and so I came to Baghdad and began searching for work on Instagram," Johari said, speaking in a restaurant he has run for about a month.

Lebanon is grappling with an unprecedented financial crisis that the World Bank says is of a scale usually associated with war.

Beirut's crisis, driven by years of endemic corruption, has seen Lebanon's currency lose more than 90 per cent of its value against the dollar.

Lebanon's 675,000-pound monthly minimum wage now fetches around $30 on the black market, and about 80 per cent of the population now lives in poverty, according to the UN.

When he left Beirut, Johari was earning the equivalent of about $100 per month. In Iraq, he earns enough to support his family back home, he said.

More than 20,000 Lebanese citizens arrived in Iraq between June 2021 and February 2022, excluding pilgrims visiting the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, according to the Iraqi authorities.

Lebanon’s ambassador in Baghdad, Ali Habhab, said that movement from Lebanon to Iraq “has recently multiplied”.

There are more than 900 Lebanese businesses now operating in Iraq, the majority of them in the restaurant trade, tourism and health, Habhab said. 

In particular, there have been “dozens of Lebanese doctors who offer their services” in Iraqi hospitals, he said.

Iraq’s decades of conflict, from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, to the US-led invasion of 2003 and subsequent sectarian conflict, and on to the rise of the Daesh group in 2014, means that Baghdad might appear to be an unlikely magnet for those seeking to build a new life.

But since the country declared victory over Daesh in 2017, Iraq has slowly begun to recover its stability.

Today, streets in Baghdad that once witnessed atrocities are buzzing with shops lining main thoroughfares and cafes open late into the night.

According to Iraqi economic expert Ali al-Rawi, many Lebanese companies came to Iraq because they “know the investment environment well”, while many foreign companies from other countries “fear investing” because of its violent past.

“There is a lot of space for Lebanese enterprises in the Iraqi economy,” he said.

But Iraqis themselves have seen their fair share of economic hardship.

In a country where 90 per cent of revenues come from oil sales, roughly a third of the population lives in poverty, according to the World Bank. 

In 2019, nationwide protests erupted across Iraq, driven by anger over rampant corruption, the absence of basic services and unemployment,  similar factors behind protests in Lebanon that erupted around the same time.

Lebanese firms flourish 

Lebanon was once a prime destination for medical tourism, as Iraqis flocked to better equipped medical centres in Beirut and other cities.

But, as with other sectors, Lebanon’s economic crisis has hit healthcare.

The Beirut Eye & ENT Specialist Hospital was once popular with Iraqi patients, but an official at the hospital, Michael Cherfan, said that “many doctors had left Lebanon”.

The hospital responded to the crisis in the way many Lebanese have, by opening a branch in Baghdad, sparing Iraqis the trip to Beirut.

“Our doctors come on a rotating basis,” Cherfan said. “Every week, one or two doctors come and do consultations and surgeries, earn some money and then return to Lebanon, which helps offset some of their losses.”

For Johari, while the money he earns in Iraq supports his family, it comes with a bitter taste. He flies home once a month, but he misses his family.

“It saddens me a lot that I can’t watch my two-month-old daughter grow up,” he said.

SANAA — Yemen's warring parties are set to lay down their weapons for the first nationwide truce since 2016 on Saturday, with all eyes on whether the UN-brokered ceasefire will hold.

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Saudi-led coalition have both agreed to observe the two-month truce, which is to take effect at 16:00 GMT on the first day of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Yemen's intractable war has killed hundreds of thousands directly or indirectly and displaced millions, triggering the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations.

Previous ceasefires have been ineffective. A national truce ahead of peace talks in April 2016 was violated almost immediately, as were other ceasefires that year.

A 2018 agreement to cease hostilities around rebel-held Hodeida port, a lifeline for the Arab world's poorest country, was also largely ignored.

Both the Houthis and Saudi Arabia have welcomed the latest initiative, which follows a surge in attacks but also increasing diplomacy including ongoing talks, snubbed by the rebels, in Riyadh.

"This time I am optimistic. This truce is unlike all the previous ones," Asmaa Zayed, a college student who also works as a cashier in Hodeida, told AFP.

"The fact it comes with Ramadan gives us a lot of hope. This war started when I was 15 years old and turned all my dreams into nightmares."

'Suffered immensely' 

Under the agreement, all ground, air and sea military operations in Yemen and across its borders would stop, UN special envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg said in his announcement.

Fuel ships would be allowed into Hodeida Port and commercial flights could resume to certain regional destinations from the airport in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa, both key demands of the insurgents before they consider peace talks.

The two sides have also agreed to meet to open roads in Taez and other governorates, Grundberg said, adding the truce could be renewed with their consent.

“All Yemeni women, men and children that have suffered immensely through over seven years of war expect nothing less than an end to this war,” said the Swedish diplomat.

With fighting in Yemen at a stalemate, the Houthis launched a series of drone-and-missile attacks on Saudi Arabia and coalition partner the United Arab Emirates this year, often targeting oil facilities.

The coalition has responded with air strikes.

Last week, on the seventh anniversary of the Saudi-led military coalition’s intervention, and a day after an attack on an oil plant within sight of the Formula One Grand Prix in the Saudi city of Jeddah, the Houthis announced a three-day unilateral ceasefire.

The coalition then announced its own truce from Wednesday, ahead of discussions with international partners in Riyadh. The rebels declined to attend the talks in an “enemy” country.

Saudi Arabia on Saturday expressed its “support” for the UN ceasefire, which was also welcomed by US President Joe Biden and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

“These are important steps, but they are not enough,” Biden said. “The ceasefire must be adhered to, and as I have said before, it is imperative that we end this war.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has welcomed the deal, calling it “a window of opportunity to finally secure peace and end the humanitarian suffering”.

On Saturday, France foreign ministry said the truce was a “major step forward”, and offered “full support” for UN efforts towards a permanent ceasefire.

The major question now is whether the truce will be observed.

The Norwegian Refugee Council called it “an essential development for millions of Yemenis” and “the start of a new chapter”, while Save the Children said they hoped it would offer a “much-needed respite from all the violence”.

The war in Yemen started when the Houthis took control of Sanaa in 2014, prompting the Saudi-led intervention in March of the following year in support of the ousted government.

It plunged what was already the Arab world’s poorest country into years of crisis, with failing infrastructure and services and 80 per cent of the 30 million population dependent on aid.

“Everything around us reeks of death and war,” said Zayed, the student in Hodeida. “I think I will go into a depression if this truce ends or fails.”

WASHINGTON — The US military could have done more to limit civilian casualties and damage during the battle for the Syrian city of Raqqa that marked the Daesh terror group’s fall in 2017, according to a report commissioned by the Pentagon.

At the end of the nearly five-month battle to free the city from Daesh, "60 to 80 per cent" of it was "uninhabitable" and resentment of the population was directed at the liberators, said a report by the research center RAND Corporation. 

“Raqqa endured the most structural damage by density of any city in Syria,” said the report released Thursday.

“The level of structural damage and the lack of US support for Raqqa’s reconstruction led many Raqqa residents to resent the method of their city’s liberation,” it added.

So-called “targeted” air strikes and artillery fire by coalition forces on Raqqa caused numerous civilian casualties between June 6 and October 30, 2017: From 744 to 1,600 dead, according to counts by the coalition, Amnesty International or the specialised site Airwars, the RAND report said.

But the battle of Raqqa also caused the destruction of a large number of buildings and civil infrastructure, which “undermined... long-term US interests” in the region, the 130-page document said.

According to UN figures cited by RAND, 11,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged between February and October 2017, including eight hospitals, 29 mosques, more than 40 schools, five universities and the city’s irrigation system.

The US military, which conducted 95 per cent of the air strikes and 100 per cent of the artillery fire during the battle, did not commit war crimes during the battle because it tried to respect international laws on the protection of civilians in wartime, but RAND said there was “room for improvement”.

Instead of focusing on airstrikes to spare the lives of its soldiers, the US military should be prepared to send more troops into the field to gain better situational awareness and take on more risk.

TEHRAN — Tehran on Saturday criticised Washington for “preventing the entry” of Iranian singer Alireza Ghorbani to the US, after he was reportedly interrogated and had his visa cancelled.

Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported that Ghorbani was travelling to California to perform at a concert in the city of Irvine celebrating the Persian new year, or Nowruz.

But on March 25, US border patrol officers at Toronto Airport in Canada reportedly interrogated him and cancelled his US visa, preventing him from travelling.

The US government “by imposing new sanctions and preventing the entry of an Iranian singer, once again showed that... it is hostile to the people of Iran”, government spokesman Ali Bahadori said on Saturday.

The US government “has a clear record of not keeping promises and breaching international and human rights standards”, he added.

The 49-year-old traditional vocalist had attributed the entry ban to his compulsory military service in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the ideological arm of Iran’s military.

In 2019, the IRGC was added to a US government list of terrorist organisations.

“What comes to my legal team’s mind is that a law has been passed that includes all individuals from 2019 onwards,” Ghorbani said Friday, in a video posted on Instagram.

The IRGC claimed responsibility for a missile attack on Iraq’s Erbil on March 13, saying it targeted an Israeli “strategic centre”, and warning of more attacks.

Relations between the US and Iran have been severed since April 1980, a year after the fall of the pro-Western shah.

The two arch-rivals are currently engaged in indirect negotiations in Vienna to restore a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, from which Washington unilaterally withdrew in 2018.

Among the key sticking points in the negotiations is Tehran’s demand to delist the IRGC from the US terror list, with the US recently affirming that sanctions on the Guard would remain.