IRAQ: Jack Fairweather in Baghdad witnessed the appalling aftermath of another suicide bomber
The young man cradled his brother's dead body in his arms. The body of his other brother had been reduced by the blast to bits and pieces. He knew who was responsible for this.
"The Americans did this, the Americans killed my brother," he screamed.
Yesterday few Iraqis wanted to confront the reality that the terrorists had struck another "soft" target - this time hundreds of young men queuing up to join the army.
Instead they turned their hatred on the US forces they accuse of bringing chaos to their country.
"The Americans are planting these bombs so it will never be safe enough for them to leave," cried the bereaved young man.
He could be forgiven for wanting to escape the grim present.
At the morgue at Karkh hospital in Baghdad, the pieces of the young man's second brother had been put together in a black plastic bag beside the first brother's remains.
Both young men were lined up outside Baghdad's army recruitment centre when the bomber struck.
Would-be soldiers, they hadn't been frightened off by a suicide bomb the day before aimed at police recruits.
They were joined by hundreds of others, queuing for a handful of places on a new Iraqi army training course. Most in line had already applied several times before for the two-day training course.
In Iraq ,there are few jobs except in the security business.
Long queues outside recruitment centres are common - making them easier targets for terrorists than heavily fortified American bases.
"I had no choice but to come today," said 24-year old Abdullah Jaffar, one recruit at the back of the line.
"When you haven't been able to feed your family in weeks you will take any chance you get." Mr Jaffar described how a white van came to stop outside the centre shortly after 7.30 a.m.
"I thought it was some people trying to jump the queue. The next second there were flames and a field of dead people." Mohammed Hadr (30), a taxi driver, was 20 metres away from the blast.
"My windshield of my car caved in, but I didn't stop driving until I was far away. You wouldn't stop in that hell." He was forced to stop by a piece of the bomber's car lodged between his wheels.
The blast had left a crater several feet across. Blackened lumps of metal from the car were scattered up and down the road. The recruitment centre itself was undamaged, but the railings at the entrance were buckled by the blast.
There had been no crash barriers to protect the recruits.
"The bodies of the Iraqis took the full impact of the explosion," said a US military officer at the scene, "It wasn't pretty." American forces set up a security cordon, while ambulances carted away the dead and injured.
By mid-morning yesterday, a torrential downpour had cleared away most of the blood.
A torn letter belonging to one of the recruits lay on the ground.
It was a request, barely legible, for the bearer to be considered as a candidate to serve his country.
Many of the recruits had returned to the scene of the bombing to harangue the US soldiers on guard.
"I saw an American soldier throw a hand grenade," shouted one man.
Another said, "They want to prove this country is not safe enough for elections. They don't want democracy. "
Abbas Razzak, another would-be soldier, said: "We hate the Americans because of what they have done to Iraq. We don't know who killed these people today. We just know that since the Americans came there has been nothing but pain and misery."
Back at the Karkh hospital morgue, a coffin had arrived for one of the bodies.
An old man came forward and lifted up the corpse's covering with the corner of his stick.
The body below, his grandson, had turned yellow and was covered with flies.
He was silent as relatives lifted the body into the cheap wooden coffin to be carted away for burial. "I have lived for too long," he said. "I don't know what is happening any more."