Lubnani sat in the front with the smuggler. Sipan sat in the back cradling three-month old Khalil in her arms. She had nodded off when “suddenly there was a loud explosion and the car literally flew in the air.” They had hit a land mine. Flames leapt from the front of the car. A fragment of metal had pierced the infant’s back. He was bleeding but alive. Sipan had cuts on her hands and her face. She pulled the baby to her chest and got out. The smuggler was hanging out of the side of the car, his guts spilling out, one of his legs missing and the other stuck inside the car. Lubnani was badly injured but trying to pull the smuggler out. “The smuggler was barely alive. You could tell he was suffering.” Lubnani took his off his tactical vest and suicide belt and sat on the ground, his legs stretched out before him in a daze. “I sat beside him for an hour weighing what to do.” With the baby parked on her left hip, she lifted herself up, reached for Lubnani’s gun, pointed it at his back and pulled the trigger. He died instantly. She shot the smuggler next in an act of mercy and threw away the gun, swaddled the baby in her abaya and began to walk.
She feels no remorse. Lubnani, “was an evil man, serving a state that was murdering innocent people. He showed me videos of himself lining up prisoners on the ground and shooting them in the back and shouting ‘Allahu Akbar.’ He was very proud of that. If I hadn’t killed them, I would never be free. It was my last chance.”
