Devastating Blast Created Few Ripples in a Recovering Iraq
The word in Arabic means the remains or ruins, the traces of something left behind. The atlal of Tuesday’s attack, one of two in the past week that killed scores in the capital and its environs, were spent bullet cartridges, catching the glint of a morning sun, that survivors accused soldiers of firing at them in the chaos and confusion that followed the blast.
The atlal were the orphaned boy who had been selling plastic bags for a few cents. They were the vegetable seller whose 18-month-old daughter was ripped from his grasp as he was hurled to the asphalt. They were the relatives standing at a morgue that housed the remains of their families together with the remnants of the bomber who killed them.
March 12, 2009. Read the full article >
From The 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winners for International Reporting