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The absence of chat means everyone found it easy? I finished it without necessarily understanding how. Help parsing 36d please. Plan to invade hills in US winds up? On the contrary (10) DOWNDRAFTS. But why?

DRAFT - plan
in DOWNS - hills
and DOWNDRFATS are the reverse of "winds up". I don't see why it needs US, though - it's an expression over here as well, as are the hills.

I'm not 100% sure but I think it's...

Plan = DRAFT invade/inside DOWNS (Hills) and it's a US spelling (as opposed to "draught")

'twas the US that I didn't understand either.

I see. I don't think the "draught" spelling is very common over here any more. I wouldn't have thought to spell it like that.

Hi Chris,

Like I said, I'm not sure but it's the best I could come up with.

I suppose it hangs on in "draughtsman".

I'm still puzzling about 21 Ac. Religion without saints returns to African nation (4)

I have *A*I, so presume (maybe wrongly!) that the answer is MALI, but why?

ISLAM backwards without S? I don't see why "saints", though, as that is abbreviated SS.

Ah, that would be it, but yes, it should be a singular saint; that was what confused me. Anyway, I can rest easy now, so thanks ChrisE!