Volleys of gunfire rang out across Baghdad on Sunday as Iraqis celebrated their soccer team's Asian Cup victory, a rare moment of joy and unity in four years of relentless strife. "We achieved the dream. Allahu Akbar! (God is greatest)," a crying fan told Iraqiya state television after Iraq's 1-0 victory over Saudi Arabia in Jakarta.
Authorities earlier imposed vehicle curfews and security forces went on heightened alert after 50 people were killed by suicide attacks against fans after Iraq's semi-final victory on Wednesday.
Iraqis ignored orders by security and religious leaders not to fire into the air. Their team, who wore black armbands in memory of the dead, had never before made it to the Asian Cup final.
Spontaneous celebrations broke out in religiously mixed Baghdad as well as in the Shi'ite south and the Kurdish north. The team featured players from all Iraq's main communities - Shi'ite and Sunni Arab as well as Kurdish. Fans cried and danced in the streets, waving their shirts in the air and hugging.
TV PRESENTERS DON FLAGS:
Television presenters, draped in the red, white and black Iraqi flag, dissolved into tears and CNN broke into its normal programming to announce the win. A vehicle curfew had begun in Baghdad at 4 pm, half an hour before kick-off, and was to stay in place until 6 am on Monday (0200 GMT).
Similar bans were also announced in the volatile northern city of Kirkuk and in the southern holy Shi'ite cities of Najaf and Kerbala, where authorities said they had received intelligence of possible car bomb attacks.
Iraqi security forces detained two men in a car packed with explosives in eastern Baghdad not long before the match started, police said. They were accused of trying to target soccer fans.
Baghdad's chief military spokesman, Brigadier General Qassim Moussawi, had said security forces were preparing for "expected terrorist attacks" on fans.
Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, also issued a fatwa, or religious edict, against firing weapons into the air, a traditional tribal celebration. Two people were killed by falling bullets on Wednesday. Shops began emptying in Baghdad from about midday and office workers went home hours early to watch the final.
The Iraqi Accordance Front, parliament's main Sunni Arab bloc, put off a crisis meeting to discuss its boycott of the government because of the match. Parliament announced the players would be rewarded, win or lose. Vendors across Iraq reported bumper sales of t-shirts, team shirts and pictures of the team, as well as Iraqi flags.
"The way the Iraqi team has played makes us very happy. They succeeded in unifying the Iraqi people, which the politicians failed to do," said Baqir Mohsin, a businessman in the southern Shi'ite city of Basra.
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