I’m frequently asked to write security assessments of Baghdad, to gauge what the risks are and what the associated political fallout could be. Only 10 days ago I was asked for my thoughts on Baghdad security: would a Daesh bombing campaign continue after Fallujah was liberated (yes because Daesh has always used them to project strength), how likely would an attack occur around Eid (very likely as Daesh targets crowded areas and especially increases attacks in Ramadhan), can they penetrate inner Baghdad areas such as Karrada (yes because these bombings are planned and have assistance to get them through checkpoints), and would there be a breakout of violence in response to such an attack (unlikely as there is a war being fought but popular anger would certainly be high). I move freely around Baghdad and the provinces, but I have always minimised my time in crowded areas because they have been so frequently targeted over the years. Relatives, friends or someone I know have been killed or injured in every year since 2003, and I expect this trend to continue for a while yet. The Karrada bombing did not come out of the blue, many people like myself who are keen Iraq observers were expecting something like this to happen because Daesh wants the fallout to serve its causes and because the security establishment remains weak in Iraq. Terrorism is certainly the cause, but incompetence and corruption play a part in allowing it to occur.

On Saturday evening I was with friends in the western end of the Karrada area, near the Babylon Hotel, watching the Germany-Italy football match. It was a very warm night and we were sat outside in a popular restaurant cheering for Italy to win but expecting Germany to. At around midnight the match was forced into extra time and then a penalty shootout. Around me every one was watching nervously as the game reached its conclusion. At 12.50am it was the Germans who came out victorious and we all felt sorry for the Italians who never seem to do well at penalty kicks. As we were still discussing the result we suddenly felt the shockwave of a bomb and the loud sound of an explosion accompanying it, meaning it was nearby. Living in Baghdad means you learn to differentiate between a car bomb, a truck bomb, a Grad or Katyusha rocket, a mortar, a grenade, an improvised landmine or IED, a missile, or just a plain sound bomb. This sounded like it was a car bomb, not big enough for any more than that, perhaps 2-3 kilometres away, likely to kill 10 people and not out of the ordinary for a city that has seen hundreds of such incidents over the past decade. We all reached for our phones to see the initial reports on social media and within 5 minutes we saw messages that it was in Karrada, next to Hadi Center mall. We all said it would be bad because we knew how crowded that area gets at night. Next we got images of a raging fire and then we saw fire trucks and ambulances speeding past us down the Karrada Dakhil road towards the explosion site. The mood changed and nobody was talking about the football anymore, and then phones started ringing, with wives, mothers, sisters, daughters calling their family members to ask that they go back home. Suddenly the restaurant started to thin out, and by 2am I was pretty much the last one there (unthinkable on a usual night). I drove down Karrada Dakhil, and could see the orange glow from the flames in the night sky and the screams of sirens and people running. Panic was the overwhelming feeling that gripped this area and with more emergency vehicles cramming into the road I decided to move away and turned onto Karrada Kharij and back home. On Facebook and Twitter the photos posted were showing the mall engulfed in flames. The death toll began to creep past 15 and this started to look like a worse attack than I expected. At 4am I went to sleep thinking the situation would settle by late morning and we would get a death toll in the mid 30s.

That’s what happens in Iraq, deaths become just statistics and the frequency of attacks means the shock doesn’t register as it would elsewhere or that you have enough time to feel sad or grieve. I was near the Karrada area on 2 May 2015 when a twin bombing killed Ammar al-Shahbander, a friend of so many Iraqis and foreigners alike and one of the most energetic and optimistic people you could meet in Baghdad. He was killed, along with 16 others, very close to Hadi mall and on a similarly busy evening. Tragic but one of so many attacks, and I remembered Ammar while having an intense feeling of déjà vu.

My phone began to ring and buzz with calls and message alerts at 7am. The death toll had reached 65, I had several emails asking for an update and messages from friends and relatives checking on me, and news that PM Abadi was at the site of the bombing. I was shocked at the death toll, the explosion didn’t seem powerful enough for such a figure, perhaps there was something else that was not yet reported. At 8.30am I drove to work to expecting the usual rush hour traffic but the streets were strangely quiet, as if it was under curfew. The mood was depressing and the smell of fire hung over the city. Every person you looked in the face seemed in a state between shock and sadness, and you couldn’t tell if they were directly affected by the bombing or not. In a meeting at 9am some early details came to light and the number of dead surged past 80. Flames were still being put out, the basement of the mall was still too hot to enter, families were frantically searching through the ashes for their missing ones. From 10am to midday, in between calls, messages, and meetings, I watched on local TV and social media the death toll go up: 100, 110, 115, 120, 130, 140. A feeling of anger and sadness gripped me but the numbness from nearly identical experiences meant my emotions were in check. Then something changed to make the situation more real, to change it from a news event to a personal tragedy. I was told that a friend of mine, Ahmad Dhia, was missing and he was in the area at the time of the bombing, with his two brothers-in-law shopping for Eid presents for their families. I asked some of his other friends for an update, not wanting to call his family who had been up all night trying to get hold of him. His phone was last active at 12.55am, after that it could not be reached. At 1pm his work colleagues had found his car about 50 metres from the mall, but couldn’t get into the mall as bodies and charred corpses were still being pulled out slowly. His family had spread out across the city’s hospitals searching for him and a few friends were sent to the morgue to stay on watch in case his body showed up there. I’m not sure what I can do to help so I post on Twitter the news that he is missing with a faint hope that someone has some information, maybe they saw him injured in a hospital or he was seen earlier in the morning near the bomb site. By 4pm there was still no word and I had declined several media interviews because I didn’t feel up to commenting in my usual detached manner while Ahmad was still missing. A sense of dread had set in, your heart tells you to have hope and gives you several reasons why you haven’t heard from him yet, but your brain is telling you to be realistic, you know what has happened but do not want to accept it and any moment now it will be confirmed. I drive towards the bomb site but can’t get close enough to be of any use and while standing looking at the blackened sidewalk and gutted mall someone next to me who looks like he has been shovelling through ash the whole day stares at me and bluntly states ‘he is dead, whoever it is you are looking for is dead, if he hasn’t showed up this morning then just accept it’. It feels like a punch in the stomach, you want to respond or lash out but can’t get the words out because the wind is knocked out of you. I walk away because there is nothing to see except death and destruction, and this is a place where hope does not exist, extinguished by flames that have consumed so many young people, and despair has taken hold, something I don’t want to feel right now. At 6pm a message arrives: Ahmad’s burned body was pulled out from the basement. My brain has been trying to prepare me for this but it still hurts as if it is completely unexpected. I’m not sure what to do or how to express what I feel, I just sit and stare at the wall for a bit. I open Ahmad’s Facebook page, I want to see photos of him smiling, to remember him as a wonderful young man, not to think of his burned body. I tear up as I flick through the photos, he was going to achieve so much, he should not be dead.