THE local kids rushed to greet the US patrol. “Hello, Mister,” they cried to the American soldiers, who started handing out chocolate bars and keyrings. At that moment a car sped from a side street and exploded right next to the crowd gathered around the Humvee.

More than 30 Baghdad youngsters, aged between six and 15, were killed yesterday in a suicide bombing that marked a new level of depravity even in a city used to daily carnage. But it will change nothing.

More than 80 Iraqis have been killed in at least 11 suicide attacks since London had its first taste of suicide bombings a week ago today. In the first half of this year more than 1,000 Iraqis have died in about 130 suicide attacks. It has been a sustained terror assault that has steadily grown in intensity and has no precedent in Israel, Beirut or anywhere else.

Indeed, the bombings have become so constant and so commonplace that only those with exceptionally high death tolls are still reported in the international media.

As Londoners begin adjusting to the fact that suicide bombers have finally reached Britain, ordinary Baghdadis have long ago accepted them as an unavoidable fact of life.

They avoid police stations and government buildings whenever possible. They keep their wives and children at home as much as they can. They watch out for low-slung vehicles, or cars driven by single men, and know that the morning and evening rush hours are the most dangerous periods of the day.

Many will say the shahada, a prayer Muslims say in preparation for death, before leaving for work.

The bombings have also transformed the face of Baghdad. The city is riven by high concrete blast walls. Its roads are punctuated by checkpoints. Hotels, government buildings and other possible targets are ringed with barriers and razor wire.

But it seems that no amount of security sweeps or anti-insurgent operations can stem the carnage. The supply of young suicide bombers, the vast majority from countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen or North Africa, seems inexhaustible.

Ali Hussein, a 29-year-old Iraqi from Nasariyah now living in Baghdad, said his father had begged him to return home. He refused. “There are six million people in Baghdad and I'm ready to take the same risk as any other Iraqi,” he said.

“I could be killed at any moment like any other Iraqi, but I’ll not leave and I’ll live my life. The more I hear of the bombings and killings, the more I want to live here, I don’t want to be one of the people who leaves. I want to stick it out and I’ll not be scared off by these animals.” He added: “Sometimes at night I cry and ask myself, ‘What crime did we Iraqis commit that they kill our people, our women and children in the street? ’. ”

What no amount of bombs can do is dull the grief of the newly bereaved. That, at least, the people of Baghdad still share with the families who lost husbands, wives or children in last week’s London bombs.

After yesterday’s slaughter of the innocent in the impoverished district of al-Jedidah, mothers ripped open their black cloaks, threw themselves to the ground, wailed and slapped their faces.

The dead or dying children were rushed to the nearby Kindi hospital, leaving a street strewn with pools of blood, body parts, sandals and mangled children’s bicycles.

At the morgue fathers were let in one by one to collect the naked, mutilated bodies of their children, which they gently placed in coffins outside.

Abu Hamed, whose 12-year-old son, Mohammed, was among the victims, said: “I was at home. I heard the explosion. I rushed outside to find my son. I found only his bicycle.” He eventually found his son’s body at the morgue.

One woman, Hana Ali, failed to find her 11-year-old son at the hospital. When she returned to the blast scene, she found his head in the rubble.

“They killed all the children of the neighbourhood,” wept Radhi Hamud, but he was one of the “lucky” ones. His 13-year-old son, Husam, was among another 30 or so children who were merely maimed. Husam lost both his legs.

Ammar Karim is a reporter for AFP

IRAQI ATTACKS

Iraqi policemen and soldiers killed in the first six months of 2005: 1,174

Sources: Brookings Institution; Iraqi Body Count. Figures are estimates.

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