Signature wooden waterpipes keep bubbling in Iraqi shrine city

Iraqi men smoking waterpipes at a coffee shop in Iraq’s central holy city of Karbala. Photo: AFP

Iraq's Karbala is known as a religious pilgrimage site, visited by millions of worshippers, but shisha-smokers revere it for a different reason – its signature wooden waterpipes.

About 120km south of Iraq’s capital, within walking distance of Karbala’s two Shiite shrines, avid smokers drag puffs of fruit-flavoured tobacco from their tall pipes.