An Iraqi couple finds love amid the shattered glass

In the Monitor's latest check-in with the Methboub family, romance is blooming despite the proliferation of bombings.

from the February 27, 2007 edition

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But with the violence affecting every corner of Iraq's capital – despite a much-vaunted two-week-old "surge" of US and Iraqi troops – even matrimony feels fragile. "The situation is so unfair... because we can't guarantee our lives [together]," says Fatima.

Her 17-year-old sister, Amal, who kept a diary during the war, has seen the costs, too. "Many young people are married a short time, then they are killed. They leave orphans behind," she says telling a story about two brothers she knew, each with two children. "They both died. This family was destroyed."

The Methboub family has survived intact even as the death toll among Iraqis climbed to more than 3,000 a month at the end of last year. In 2006, the UN calculates 34,000 Iraqis died. Some estimates are far higher.

But the violence comes uncomfortably close. A month ago, a series of blasts began ripping through their neighborhood.

A Saudi suicide bomber blew up his car in a nearby shopping center. The next day, a blast shook an outdoor market. Methboub son-in-law Ali, a security guard between jobs, and her son Mohamed, were out helping to collect the dead and ferry the wounded to a nearby hospital.

But less than half an hour after the market bombing, a minibus stopped on the street a couple blocks away. The driver asked passersby to help push it. The vigilant volunteers spied oxygen tanks and fuel bottles inside. The driver, a Syrian, tried to run away, but was caught by Ali and Mohamed – who have been involved in their neighborhood Shiite militia. They shoved him into a nearby car trunk. Later, they handed him over to a local guard and the Syrian reportedly confessed to carrying out four previous bombings. After that, he was handed over to Iraqi security forces.

Ali says the police were afraid to get close to the minibus, and warned the entire neighborhood to flee. The streets emptied, and 10 minutes later, police exploded the minibus and its contents. No one was injured, but the blast damaged several buildings and every window in the Methboub's apartment was shattered. The TV and satellite dish were wrecked, the door was blown in, and the stove collapsed.

Remarkably, Methboub and her brood were all absent, visiting daughter Zainab, who's married to Ali.

But friends of the family, living outside Iraq, have helped pay for new windows, only to have two more broken on Sunday. The Methboubs have also received some help from Monitor readers, enabling them to upgrade the electrical system, buy new curtains, and fix their balky generator.

"Now with this [new US and Iraqi] security plan, I have big fears," says Methboub, wearing one of her trademark ornately embroidered velvet robes, this one in forest green. "If one man shoots one bullet [at US or Iraqi forces], they will destroy this whole building!"

But not all the Methboub women share her concerns about more troops in the neighborhood. "Fatima yesterday dreamed of having more American and Iraqi soldiers around," says Duha, half-joking that her twin sister, Hibba, "wants the Americans to search the place, to see how they do their searches."

After the latest bombings, the Methboubs have started search for a safer, reasonably priced, home. And among the 15 or so families in the run-down building, they are not the only ones touched by violence.

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