Iraqi village mourns bombing victims
Youth targeted in suicide attack on soccer match
ASRIYA, IRAQ • The suicide bomber who blew up a youth soccer match late last month left barely a dent in the hard, dry earth, a faint scorch on a concrete wall nearby.
But he gouged a chasm of grief in the heart of the small community that lost more than two dozen of its sons in a single moment, at 6:15 on the evening of March 25.
A total of 43 people died — 29 of them boys younger than 17 who had been participating in the match or were watching their friends play.
The bomber also was a teenager, no more than 15 or 16. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility, saying the target was a gathering of the Shiite paramilitaries.
Yet that hardly explains the horror of an attack that inevitably would kill children.
The bomber “was a child, and he came to kill children,” said Mohammed al-Juhaishi, a local sheik who lost five relatives in the blast. “It was a children’s soccer game. Of course he knew he was going to kill children.”
For the boys of the impoverished, mixed SunniShiite village of Asriya, 60 kilometres south of Baghdad, soccer isn’t a pastime. It is a passion and a purpose, offering the dream of escape from the grim monotony of life in one of Iraq’s more neglected communities.
One such boy was Mohaned Khazaal, 10, who lived for Real Madrid, his favourite team, and his idol, the team’s star striker Cristiano Ronaldo, said his brother, Ahmed, 12.
Mohaned hoped one day to play for Iraq, and perhaps even Real Madrid, said Ahmed, who dreamt of playing for Barcelona and often got into fights with his brother over which of the rival teams was better.
They both played for a local team, which did not qualify for the final of the youth league tournament. But they attended the match nonetheless, with an older brother, Farouq, 20, and almost all the other boys living in the soccer-crazed community.
The final took place between a team called Ahli and a team called Salam, which means peace. The venue was a dusty field in the middle of the village, unmarked except for the goalpost at either end. Officials watched from plastic chairs on a small podium erected at one edge of the field. The spectators, most of them boys, stood around the perimeter of the field.
Hardly anyone seemed to notice one of the boys watching the game was wearing a thick jacket on a warm spring evening while all the other boys were dressed in T-shirts. Anmar al-Janabi, 12, who was standing near the oddly dressed boy, said he did notice, although he didn’t think to say anything to the adults at the match.
“He was a little tall with long hair and he looked different. He was wearing a thick jacket and it was hot,” he recalled. “He spoke to us. He said, “It’s a good game, isn’t it?’ ”
When the match ended, the boy in the jacket joined the scramble to watch the awarding of the trophy and the medals, said Anmar, who was there with his brother, Walid, 13, and friends.
“Then he blew himself up, and I felt a fire hit my face,” Anmar said. “And then I ran away.”
Few parents had accompanied their sons to the match that day. Why would they? Most lived within a couple of hundred metres from the pitch.
When the bomb went off, people raced toward the field from their homes. They arrived to find a tangled mess of broken children, body parts and blood.
Anmar’s brother Bilal died in his uncle’s car on the way to a hospital.
Mohaned Khazaal, the 10-year-old Real Madrid fan, died instantly, said Ahmed, who escaped with a shrapnel wound to his face. Farouq was badly burned and is in hospital.
Two weeks later, the village is still in shock. The wall beside the spot where the bombing occurred has been turned into a shrine, strung with photos of the dead, the bloodied remnants of their shirts and soccer balls.
Bilal, Anmar’s brother, was a star student and an ace soccer player, said his grandfather, Hamid al-Janabi.
“His teachers came to visit us, and they were crying,” he said. “He was always near the top of his class.”
Walid’s father remembered his son in a different way.
“He was not so good at school,” said Adil Abed. “He failed many of his exams because he was always playing soccer.”
He was also kind, and loved birds, said his mother, Hamid. “After he died, people came to see me who I had never heard of before, and they told me Walid had been kind to them.”