War wounded abound in "post-war" Iraq

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The war may have been declared over but the wounded keep coming: Iraqis hit by stray bullets, grenades or bombs and flocking to hospitals with only a long-shot hope of getting full treatment.

Five months after the United States proclaimed an end to major combat in Iraq (news - web sites), the occupied country still has no shortage of victims praying for a badly needed operation or artificial limb.

Ali Haidar Jassem, 14, was one of the luckier ones as he sat in Baghdad's al-Kindi hospital with two shattered legs, his right hand and part of his left missing after a June 26 explosion.

The teenager was booked Sunday on a flight to Germany, where a non-governmental organisation called Hammer Forum was taking care of his treatment in the city of Hamburg.

Ali was blown up when coalition forces dynamited a headquarters of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s ousted Baathist regime a short distance from where the youth was playing.

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