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 p.m. March 25.
A total of 43 people died in the bombing at the game, according to figures provided by the local government. Of them, 29 were boys younger than 17 who had either been participating in the match or were watching their friends play.
The bomber also was a teenager, no more than 15 or 16 years old, judging by the picture of him released by the Islamic State, which asserted responsibility for the bombing, and the accounts of those who saw him at the match. The militants’ statement said the target was a gathering of the Shiite paramilitaries known as Hashd al-Shaabi, and the local government said two members of a militia were among the adults who died.
Yet that hardly explains the horror of an attack that inevitably would kill children. Even by the standards of the multiple tragedies that have befallen Iraq in recent years, the one that unfolded on the soccer field at Asriya seems to rank as one of the most shocking and difficult to comprehend.
The bomber “was a child, and he came to kill children,” said Mohammed al-Juhaishi, one of the sheiks from the area, 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 Sunni-Shiite village of Asriya, 40 miles south of Baghdad in the area the U.S. military called the Triangle of Death, 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, aged 10, who lived for the sake of Real Madrid, his favorite team, and his idol, the team’s star striker Cristiano Ronaldo, said his brother, Ahmed, who is 12. Mohaned hoped one day to play for Iraq, and perhaps even Real Madrid, said Ahmed, who dreamed of playing for Barcelona and often got into fights with his brother over which of the rival teams was better.
They also both played for a local team, which did not qualify for the final of the youth league tournament. But they attended the match nonetheless, along with an older brother, Farouq, 20, and almost all of 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 goal post at either end. Local 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 that 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 of boys converging on the podium to watch the awarding of the trophy and the medals, said Anmar, who attended the match with his 13-year-old brother, Walid, and a group of friends.
“Then he blew himself up, and I felt a fire hit my face,” Anmar said. “And then I ran away.”
Two weeks later, the entire 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 boys, the bloodied remnants of their shirts and soccer balls. Black banners announcing the deaths hang on the walls of the many homes that lost sons.
Forgotten by almost all of those who survived the carnage was the outcome of the match. Among those interviewed, only Ahmed remembered the score. The team called Peace won, he said, by a score of 1-0.
The team’s uncollected trophy has been placed at the site of the blast, surrounded by an arrangement of soccer balls, flowers and Iraqi flags.
