stepped-up war against Israel and growing popularity at home, Hezbollah rallied tens of thousands of supporters Thursday to mark the death of Shiite Islam’s most revered saint.
The march, an annual display of force through Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut, took on added significance this year because of Hezbollah’s intensified campaign to force an Israeli pullback from southern Lebanon.
Tens of thousands of Hezbollah followers dressed in black marched through Beirut’s poorest neighborhoods to mark Ashoura, which commemorates the death of Hussein, the grandson of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.
Hussein was killed in a battle in 680 on the plain of Karbala near the Euphrates River in modern-day Iraq. The battle was a key event in Islam’s split into the Sunni and minority Shiite branches.
In the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh, thousands of men slashed their heads with curved swords and razors and beat their chests with iron chains in a show of sorrow. Self-flagellation had been banned by Hezbollah’s spiritual leaders, but some Shiites still perform the bloodletting.