Dear Friends,

It looks like hell has broken loose in Iraq.

Almost every Iraqi family that I know has been subjected to violence in “The New Free Iraq”, in many cases, more than once.

So sad to say that this time it’s my in-laws.

My Mother-in-law’s sister-in-law, a wife in her mid forties and a struggling mother of three teenage girls, who had just managed to get her PhD in physics, last year.

She was driving back with a friend form a Baghdad university, where she used to teach, when their car was attacked by a rain of bullets.

Her friend survived, but she was killed instantly when a bullet found its way through her head to settle in her brain.

We are so sorry to lose you, Hayfaa’.

A week later, our family in Iraq, still doesn’t know who or why was she killed.

Whether it was US soldiers or Iraqi looters …or simply being the “wrong person at the wrong time”, being an Iraqi when the Bush adminstration is in government … Nobody knows.

In new Iraq, there is no investigation … No nothing.

Iraqi life is so cheap; it hardly has a price anymore.

But not in God’s eyes, my friends … Not in God’s eyes.

In peace.

Yasmin