Kabul— Along rutted streets in newly revitalized neighborhoods hang green, red, yellow and black banners commemorating Imam Hussein, the prophet Muhammad's grandson, whose death more than 1,300 years ago continues to forge the identity and fuel the grievances of Afghanistan's Shiite Muslims.

For centuries, Shiites, most of them ethnic Hazaras with distinct East Asian facial features, were absent from public life, regarded as an economic underclass and the target of occasional pogroms by Sunni Pashtun-dominated governments. Under the Taliban, they were persecuted with a fervor that approached "ethnic cleansing."

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