In the evolutionary landscape lakes are stasis and torrents tumbling down steep hillsides are rapid evolution.

Who Lies Sleeping?

Today in the Home of Abraham

Another victory for US and UK barstool heroes

Abu Hassan and Malek Hammoud were preparing lunch for customers at the Nasser restaurant on the north side of Abu Taleb Street. The missile that killed them landed next to the westbound carriage, its blast tearing away the front of the cafe and cutting the two men—the first 48, the second only 18—to pieces. A fellow worker said:

This is all that is left of them now.

It was an oven pan dripping with blood. At least 15 cars burst into flames burning many of their occupants to death. Several men tore desperately at the doors of another flame-shrouded car in the centre of the street which had been flipped upside down by the missile. They were forced to watch helplessly as the woman and her three children inside were cremated alive in front of them.

The second missile hit neatly on the eastbound carriageway sending shards of metal into three men standing outside a concrete apartment block. The building's manager, Hishem Danoon, ran to the doorway as soon as he heard the massive explosion.

I found Ta'ar in pieces over there.

His head was blown off.

That's his hand.

A group of young men and a woman pointed into the street and there, a scene from any horror film, was Ta'ar's hand, cut off at the wrist, his four fingers and thumb grasping a piece of iron roofing. His young colleague, Sermed, died the same instant. His brains lay piled a few feet away, a pale red and grey mess behind a burnt car. A doorman who was also killed.

As each survivor talked, the dead regained their identities. There was the electrical shop owner killed behind his counter by the same missile that cut down Ta'ar and Sermed and the doorman, and the young girl standing on the central reservation, trying to cross the road, and the truck driver who was only feet from the point of impact and the beggar who regularly called to see Mr Danoon far bread and who was just leaving when the missiles came screaming through the storm to destroy him.

… …

“Have it!” call out the barstool brigadiers. “Another drink, Colin? Another couple, Sharon!”

Reporting by Robert Fisk in Baghdad.

Last uploaded: 19 April, 2008.

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