ROP Watch

The Religion of Peace is not:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Umm Ali says militants killed her son last month for the most unlikely of reasons: He trims men's beards. In Baghdad's Dora neighborhood, residents say Sunni Muslim extremists have made barbers the new hunted, accusing them of violating a strict reading of Islamic teachings that say men should keep their beards long.

Some extremists also consider Western-style haircuts an offensive symbol of the hated, secularized culture of Europe and the United States. To them, sporting a clipped beard or a modern haircut is an infraction worthy of death.