Word: yasser
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...smiles wanly, embarrassed now by that optimism. But how could he have known that the new life he was promising would expose his family to even greater danger and drive them out of the country? Yasser, who has been a loyal employee of Time's since the fall of Saddam Hussein, now keeps his family in Jordan, where they live among nearly 1 million other Iraqi exiles. His story mirrors Iraq's: a tale of hope and opportunity overwhelmed by terror and tragedy...
Saddam's fall brought joy to most Iraqis, but Yasser had additional reasons to celebrate. A few days after the regime's fall, Sheherezad gave birth to twin girls: Tabarek and Aya. There were complications. The babies were premature, and Tabarek was weak. Much of the pediatric hospital's life-support equipment was lost to the looting mobs that rampaged through Baghdad after the collapse of the old regime, so doctors had to rely on one old, malfunctioning incubator. Tabarek later developed learning difficulties that, her doctors believe, resulted in part from poor postnatal attention...
...Yasser remained optimistic even as chaos began to pervade the nation, finding consolation in the fact that he was making a good living. He served as a bodyguard for our correspondents and photographers, keeping us safe from kidnappers, insurgents and other Iraqis who resented our presence. Frequently threatened with death - by Sunni terrorists and Shi'ite extremists alike - he never quailed. We promoted him to security chief, and he made a tidy income, nearly three times the salary of a university professor...
...good fortune attracted the attention of bad people. Iraqis working with foreigners are regarded with suspicion by radical Shi'ite groups like the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Extremist groups view people like Yasser as traitors and collaborators who deserve to be tortured and executed. Early last year, one such group grabbed Yasser and interrogated him for several hours; that they released him unharmed was a small miracle - and a testament to his ability to talk his way out of trouble. But a few months later, the same faction kidnapped and tortured one of his friends...
...they tried to escape one nightmare, they confronted another. Shehere-zad had two children from an earlier marriage - Liliyan, 16, and Raed, 15 - and while Yasser had raised them as his own, their natural father refused to allow them to leave the country. This left Sheherezad with a terrible choice. Leaving Iraq could mean never seeing two of her kids again, but staying would gravely endanger the three others. She and Yasser decided to leave without the teenagers. Yasser had to sit down with the younger children and have the conversation he had hoped to avoid until they became adults...