This is a big deal.
The single largest religious gathering on the planet is going off in January, in Iraq, and with ISIS kicked to the curb.
You may have missed the diary, here, in November celebrating the victory over ISIS at Jurf al-Sakhar. That battle also freed up Karbala.
Along with killing or capturing (and then killing) some 600 ISIS raiders inside the city, another 1,000 or so were eliminated. Note that Jurf al-Sakhar is just up the road from Karbala. Relatively speaking JaS is a mid-scale town.
So now the big holiday at Karbala is coming up: January 3rd, 2015. Arbaeen (or Chehelom in Persian) means "40." Here this refers to the 40th day after the Day of Ashura which echoes the death in battle/martyrdom of Hussein bin Ali, the grandson The Prophet, Mohammad.
American Catholics will recognize the pattern: it works like ashes and palms.
1,100,000 Persians.
The Baghdad embassy for the Islamic Republic of Iran confirmed that 1,100,000 entries had been provided for pilgrims, most of whom have not been able to enact this devotion for more than a decade. These people are civilians. The crowd at Karbala will look like what happens in America at the Fourth of July celebration in Washington, covering the whole National Mall with people.
Could be 2,000,000 Persians by January. Could easily be 25,000,000 Muslims all together in Karbala.
Roughly, it's their Easter if you allow the very roughest/illogical analogies.
And this great outpouring comes directly from busting up ISIS. The little monsters came to Anbar Province in June; they were dead by the hundreds at JaS and the outskirts of Karbala in November.
ISIS was not/is not an army. Once Major General Qassem Suleimani got things organized for his Coalition and Iraqi Security Force to lay down an in-depth siege, the battles ran on rails. This is the "surround and annihilate" battle plan that worked so well at al-Qusayr, Tikrit, and Amerli.
"Surround and annihilate" for the Karbala-JaS area began with an extensive logistics investment, creation of artillery fire zones to interdict ISIS and Sunni tribal support, coordination among the half-dozen vertical organizations involved, and battlefield command on a day to day basis.
Jurf al-Sakhar and the surrounding area was secured on November 5th. And then on November 7th -- as reported by locals -- the ISIS leadership at al-Qa'im was killed with a thumper "gasoline bomb" with air attacks by Iraqi forces out of Al Asad.
Everything changed and not an American within 50 miles of either fight.
Going forward with this new situation and with no live Saudis in the area, one can hope there will be no bombings come January. This would be a miracle.
That will make a first for a normal, peaceful Arbaeen/Chehelom celebration since 2003. That is when the first Saudi paymasters showed up in the Anbar Sunni community with suitcases of money. They initiated mass murder programs aimed at these very pilgrims, targeting people who come as families from all over the world.