Hussein Maytham and his family were driving past the palm tree grove near their home after a quiet evening shopping for toys for his younger cousins when their car hit a bomb planted on the moon-lit road.
“I only remember the explosion,” Maytham, 16, said weakly from his hospital bed, his pale arms speckled brown by shrapnel. The attack took place earlier this month in the Shiite-majority village of Hazanieh. The force of the blast hurled the teenager out of the vehicle, but his family – his parents, an aunt and three cousins - perished in the fiery carnage. Residents say gunmen hidden nearby in irrigation canals opened fire, killing two others.
