Football-crazed Iraqis watch WC despite danger

BAGHDAD, July 1 (AFP): Raad Abdulhussein sits glued to a television in a Baghdad cafe, anxious over the dual concerns of his team trailing in a World Cup match, and the danger of bombings.
He puffs continually on a waterpipe as he sits quietly with three friends in the "Facebook" cafe, the silence only broken by shouts or clapping when the Netherlands advance toward Mexico's goal.
"Football brings us together," says Raad, a 30-year-old taxi driver, who visits the cafe every day with his friends to watch the matches, which due to the time difference are broadcast in the evening in Iraq.
"It is our only way to leave the atmosphere of worry and tension and fear of the unknown," he says.
"A car may explode at any moment, or a bomb, or a person enters the cafe and blows himself up," Raad says.