Celebration and Anguish: Kurds hail photo of leader amid continued sectarian strife

Crowds of Iraqi Kurds have been celebrating after local media broadcast the first photographs of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani since he suffered a stroke last year. As president, Talabani used his extensive connections to mediate disputes between Iraq's Sunni Muslim, Shi'ite and ethnic Kurdish factions, which have intensified since the withdrawal of US troops in December 2011. Sunni Islamist insurgents now carry out attacks against the Shi'ite-led government. On Friday a twin bomb blast outside a Sunni Muslim mosque killed at least 43 people in one of the deadliest attacks in a month-long surge in sectarian violence.