An extract from Luke O’Neil’s Welcome To Hellworld

There’s a girl I never want to let myself forget. Her name is Samar Hassan and we killed her family.

In January of 2005 in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, Samar who was five years old at the time was riding in the backseat of her parents’ car as they returned from bringing her young brother to the hospital. It was getting dark and nearing curfew and her father likely aware of this was driving faster than normal. Fearing that the driver was a suicide bomber an army patrol in the area that evening was given permission to open fire and so they did because that is what army patrols do.

Read the full extract here.