* RAMTHA, Jordan – The connection was weak and the call was short, but Umran Sreiheen’s family heard what the caller had to say: “Your son is dead.”
Then the line disconnected.
It was another 12 hours before Sreiheen’s family got a phone call from Iraq. Their 22-year-old son was leaving Mosul University in a car with three friends when what is believed to be a U.S. missile fell on the road in front of them. The car flipped several times, killing all four.
Sreiheen was one of five Jordanians who have been killed in Iraq since the war began. The fifth, a driver named Ahmed el Bauz, died last week when a missile landed in front of his car near the Jordan-Iraq border.
The news of the students’ deaths Monday has spread throughout this country’s 5 million people and has made an already unpopular war personal.
Throughout the nation, all five men are simply called “martyrs.” King Abdullah sent a plane Tuesday to pick up their bodies.
Thursday, thousands attended Sreiheen’s funeral. Between chants of “God is great” the crowd chanted “Death to Israel,” “Death to America” and “Death to Britain.”

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