IRAQ: A battered jeep with a coffin strapped to its roof yesterday pulled up outside what remained of al-Baya police station, writes Jack Fairweather in Baghdad.
In an accompanying car, a group of women began to wail and scream as the makeshift hearse paused at the bomb site on its way to a burial site.
Inside the coffin were charred body parts which once belonged to Sgt Shahab Abdullah. He was caught in a devastating blast unleashed when a suicide bomber drove into the station and pulled the detonation trigger on a pick- up truck packed with explosives.
"A curse on the Americans and a curse on the police for what has happened," shouted one of Abdullah's relatives before the ruins. She was led back to the car by her family, inconsolable.
Iraqi police and their families yesterday mourned their dead after Monday's string of suicide bombs which left 28 officers dead and scores injured.
At al-Baya police station, where six policemen were killed and more than 50 injured, on-duty officers were joined by those still injured from the blast to piece through the wreckage.
There was still a vague hope that beneath the collapsed front of the building a survivor might be found, which rapidly faded as bloody remains were steadily removed from the site.
Iraqi police are dying at a rate of one a day as they find themselves either caught up in attacks on coalition forces or, as increasingly the case, the subject of the violence.
With rudimentary training, poorly armed and without armour protection, they have proved easy pickings for terrorists who accuse the police of collaborating with the US-led occupation. More than 40 officers have been killed in the past month alone.
"We feel scared and vulnerable," said Lt Omar Khudair, supervising officer at al- Baya'a station who explained that although there were 128 policemen at the station, they had only 50 rifles.
The contrast with the American approach to security is made clear at a nearby US base where soldiers stand behind 10-tonne concrete crash barriers with binoculars and machine guns.
At al-Baya station, 20 men cluster around a barbed-wire cordon with their hands in their pockets, keeping back a crowd of locals who have come to see the blast site by shouting and occasionally throwing stones.
Neither do the Iraqi police have the resources or abilities to track down their attackers - who have grown increasingly sophisticated whilst the Iraqi police have lagged behind.
"We've know idea who's attacking us or where they might be hiding," said Lt Khudair "All we can do is stand here and wait for the next attack."
The mounting wave of attacks, however, has done little to dampen enthusiasm among thousands of young men to join up. The current force of about 35,000 police is intended to double over the next year as coalition forces look to Iraqis to provide their own security.
Sgt Mohammed Kadum (22), a recent recruit at the al-Baya station, said: "I wanted to serve my country. I may be terrified of more attacks, but I know that the Iraqi people need me."