BAGHDAD (AP) — Islamic State militants drove Ayman Hussein from his home. Eighteen months later, he sent Iraq’s soccer team to the Olympics.
Hussein kicked the game-winning goal against Qatar last month in a qualifying match, uniting Iraqis in a rare moment of triumph and becoming a national celebrity. But his journey to Brazil has been marked by the same violence and displacement that have shattered the lives of so many of his fans.
Hussein and his family fled their home in a village outside the northern city of Kirkuk as IS swept across northern and western Iraq in the summer of 2014.