ARE PERSONAL FREEDOM and Islam mutually exclusive concepts? It saddens me that one result of the demise of the dictator is a movement to further erode personal liberties. The article is here.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The list of recommendations for students attending al-Nidaa Intermediate School for Girls is difficult to miss. It's plastered on the gate.

Observe Islam's strict dress code, it says, and call on others to follow suit. Don't watch movies and TV soap operas. Make sure you pray and read the Quran every day.

Emboldened by Saddam Hussein's ouster last month, Muslim militants are wasting no time in exploiting the political void in U.S.-occupied Iraq to impose some of Islam's stricter tenets on this predominantly Muslim - but relatively liberal - nation of 24 million people.

The campaign is led by Shiite Muslim clerics who, since Saddam's fall, call the shots in most Baghdad neighborhoods and in Shiite-dominated cities across the country. While distancing themselves from violence, the clerics acknowledge that creating a purist Islamic state is their ultimate goal.