Tragic

What more can you say?

A suicide bomber steered a sedan full of explosives into a thick crowd of Iraqi police and army recruits here this morning, killing at least 122, in the deadliest single bombing since the American invasion nearly two years ago.

The bombing in Hilla, 60 miles south of Baghdad, tore into a crowd of several hundred recruits who were waiting for mandatory checkups at a medical clinic in the city center, across from the mayor's office and a large outdoor market.

The bomb went off at 8:35 a.m., just as the street was also filling with residents shopping for food and making their way to work. The blast, which left at least 170 people wounded, was so powerful it set fire to shops across the street.

Witnesses described a scene of horrific carnage, with huge pools of blood visible on the pavement and corpses being loaded onto wooden handcarts shortly after the bombing. Outside the clinic, blood could be seen splashed on a wall above a first-floor window. Nearby, a large pile of bloody shoes and clothes lay in a heap.

"I was standing inside the door when I saw a car coming fast down the road opposite the clinic," said Alaa Sami, a guard who was inside the medical center and escaped unhurt. "All of a sudden the glass and shrapnel started coming down all around my head. When I got outside I couldn't believe it: there were dead bodies everywhere, and blood on the walls and the street."

The attack, the latest of dozens aimed at Iraq's fledgling security forces, demonstrated once again that the insurgency has not lost its power to launch deadly strikes at will, despite last month's relatively peaceful election and the recent capture of several important figures in the resistance.