IRAQ: Far from Beijing, he runs to forget

While runners in Beijing compete for medals, fame and fortune, Mahmoud Kamil Ahmed runs to forget. The Iraqi distance runner, who has represented his country in international competition, lost 27 members of his family a year ago when Sunni Muslim insurgents loyal to Al Qaeda in Iraq attacked their homestead north of Baghdad.

Ahmed was not home at the time. He was in Cairo training for future competitions. But his mother, father and two brothers were among the dead. It took Ahmed several days to learn what really had happened. Up until July 27, 2007, he had spoken to his relatives nearly every day in phone calls from Cairo. But on July 27, nobody answered the phone when he called.

"My village was controlled by Qaeda gunmen. My worry began to increase when I was trying to reach others in the village whom I know, but I couldn't get them," Ahmed said.

He returned to Iraqi on July 30, 2007, and kept trying to call home from Baghdad, about 60 miles away, to no avail. Finally, he reached a brother-in-law who does not live in the village. "He said, 'Everything is all right, don't worry, but don't come home,' " Ahmed recalls.

But his voice was sad, and Ahmed knew something was wrong. He called someone else he knew. "When I asked him what was going on, he surprised me. 'Ohhhhh, don't you know? Gunmen killed all your family,' " he said.

"I was not digesting what I was hearing. Was it a dream or reality?" Ahmed said. He called his brother-in-law again and demanded the truth. This time he got another story: that two uncles were dead and the rest of the family had survived and gone into hiding.

Eventually, Ahmed reached someone else who told him the truth.

Read more about Ahmed's story here.

--Raheem Salman and Tina Susman

Photo: Iraqi distance runner Mahmoud Kamil Ahmed shows photographs of his slain family. Credit: Saad Khalaf / Los Angeles Times