BAGHDAD: When he was seven years old, Baghdad’s Mohamed Ali had a dream of playing goalkeeper, but a car bomb in the city’s main Tahrir Square tore off his left arm.
After Saddam Hussein was overthrown in a US-led invasion in 2003, sectarian violence erupted in Iraq for years. The youngster had become another victim of this violence.
He recalled the horrific incident from 2007 that also put a stop to his time playing for the youth football squad of the Air Force Club in Baghdad, saying, “I was deprived of playing football.
At the age of 22, Ali plays football for an all-amputee squad that consists of players who suffered arm or leg amputations during Iraq’s protracted war and upheaval.
The squad, which consists of 30 players, has qualified for the 2022 Amputee Football World Cup, which will be hosted in Turkey.
When its founder Mohamed al-Najjar was a student in England, he came to see an amputee squad in Portsmouth and made the decision to recreate the experience.
