Sunday, June 22, 2008

Iraqi Blogger is Murdered

I want to say something about this, but I don't know what to say. Or to whom.
The madness of this war, like all wars, takes many casualties.
Part of the tragedy is that in the context of the Iraq war, a murder seems no different than an accident. Reading this makes me feel sad, angry and helpless.

Yes. Ahmed (BlogIraq) is dead. He was killed in Baghdad on April 11th, 2008. He went back to Baghdad to take his family out, but he did not have enough time to do so.

He had an appointment that day with a guy he knew. This guy was supposed to get him some documents that prove corruption in some USAID office back in Baghdad. I don't have complete details about it. Anyway, he and the guy bringing the documents were killed at their meeting place in Mansour district in Baghdad.

This is the email he sent me a couple of hours before he was killed:

Hi Abu Aya,
Howz everything?
How is the little Ayotta ?
Things are up and down here in Baghdad. But generally its better than last September when I was here. The nights are much quieter. The explosions are less. Some areas got better and other areas got worse. But still the Sunnis can not go to Shiite places and vice versa.
I gotta go now to get to Mansour to meet the guy I told you about. They have threatened him few days ago and he has vanished since then. Hes getting ready to leave Iraq after we meet today. I think I will leave soon too. I am just waiting to get he new ID for my daughter in a couple of days maybe.I'll contact you again once I am in Syria.
Take care abu.

Ahmed

His brother in-law found him dead with his friend in Mansour district in one of the small streets there. Thank God his body was found, unlike many of our friends who were killed or just vanished without a trace.

When I first setup this blog for him, he gave me the admin password of his blog and I gave him the password of mine. We agreed that whoever dies first, the other should write about it in his blog. Its just my bad luck that he died first.

I can only think of his 20 months old daughter. Shes about the same age as my daughter, Aya.
May God take revenge of those who killed him and orphaned his lovely daughter.

Mohammed Alani


Fayrouz brought this to the attention of her readers.

No comments: