I'm trying to enable mod_rewrite on an Amazon Linux instance. My Directory directives look like this:

<Directory />
    Order deny,allow
    Allow from all
    Options None
    AllowOverride None
</Directory>

<Directory "/var/www/vhosts">
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    Options None
    AllowOverride All
</Directory>

And then further down in httpd.conf I have the LoadModule directive:

... other modules...
#LoadModule substitute_module modules/mod_substitute.so
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
#LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
... other modules...

I have commented out all the Apache modules not needed by Wordpress.

Still when I issue http restart and then check the loaded modules with /usr/sbin/httpd -l I get only:

[root@foobar]# /usr/sbin/httpd -l
Compiled in modules:
  core.c
  prefork.c
  http_core.c
  mod_so.c

Inside the virtual host containing the Wordpress site I have an .htaccess containing:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

The .htaccess is owned by apache which is the user apache runs under. The apachectl -t command returns Syntax OK

What am I doing wrong? What should I check?