Middle East in Review
Middle East in Review is a monthly gallery that features some of the top photojournalism made by AP staff photographers and freelancers based in AP’s Middle East, Afghanistan & Pakistan region.
This month’s selection highlights Eid al-Adha, or feast of the sacrifice. It’s the most important holiday on the Muslim calendar, where faithful slaughter animals to mark the willingness of the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham to Christians and Jews) to sacrifice his son.
It is a festive time, where families gather, and the meat from the slaughtered animals is also shared with the poor. Coinciding with Eid, is the annual Hajj pilgrimage, where more than two million Muslims converged in Saudi Arabia. Hajj is required of every able-bodied Muslim once in their lifetime.
In Pakistan, Pakistani police say gunmen opened fire on a group of transgender people, killing one of them, in an upscale neighborhood in the southern port city of Karachi. In neighboring Afghanistan, Dozens of people, including women and children, were killed in an attack on a Shiite mosque in the Afghan capital during Friday prayers.
In Iraq, security forces wrapped up their push to re-take Tal Afar, one of the last bastions of the Islamic State group in northern Iraq.
Yemen’s ruinous civil war rages on, with Saudi-led airstrikes shredding neighborhoods and contaminated water spreading cholera.
This gallery was curated by Maya Alleruzzo, Chief Associated Press photo editor for the Mideast, Afghanistan & Pakistan.
Visual artist and Digital Storyteller at The Associated Press
