Ammar Ali never dreamt of becoming a professional athlete, let alone Iraq's first wheelchair fencing Paralympic medalist. Like most of his fellow countrymen, the 35-year-old thought watching football games with friends was the extent of his sporting aspirations - until an attack upended his life.
Thirteen years ago this month, Ali became one of the hundreds of thousands of casualties of Iraq's civil war when a bomb ripped through his Baghdad neighbourhood as he made his way to work.
Four years earlier, the United States toppling of dictator Saddam Hussein plunged the country into chaos, turning residential areas such as Ali's into battlefields as warring factions fought each other with little regard for civilian life.