Three teenage Iraqi brothers thought they had found a good way to make money for their impoverished family - buying and selling birds. But as they bought their first birds at a popular pet market in southern Baghdad on Friday, an explosives belt strapped to a female bomber blew up. Kareem, 15, and Sajjad, 14, were killed instantly, said their uncle Mohammed Hussein Obeid.
Akram, 17, struggled home with severe injuries to tell his family, but died later in hospital. The brothers were among 99 people killed in twin blasts on Friday that the US military blamed on al Qaeda in Iraq, saying there was some evidence that the bombers had been mentally handicapped.