Baghdad's First Snow

It snowed in Baghdad. The flakes melted-quickly, but the smiles, went on.

After weathering nearly five years of war, Baghdad residents thought they'd pretty much seen it all. But as muezzins were calling the faithful to prayer, the people here awoke to something certifiably-new.

"For the first time in my life I saw a snow-rain like this falling in Baghdad," said Mohammed Abdul-Hussein, a 63-year-old retiree from the New Baghdad area.

"When I was young, I heard from my father that such rain had fallen in the early '40s on the outskirts of northern Baghdad," Mr. Abdul-Hussein said.