Young Iraqi's wedding day ends up as a funeral

BAGHDAD, Apr 24 (Reuters) Horns blared and drums pounded to mark what was meant to be Yarub Yassin's wedding.

Friends and family had been looking forward to a special day -- but Yassin died a single man.

Relatives of Yassin said the 22-year-old was the victim of a Katyusha rocket that killed him and six other people in a Baghdad car park yesterday.

Whether the guerrilla attack missed its target or was designed to fuel further chaos in Iraq, Yassin became yet another victim of the blood-letting that plagues the country and that many fear could trigger a slide into sectarian civil war.

''You were supposed to get married. You were supposed to get married,'' said one elderly mourner, weeping and slapping his own face as Yassin's body lay wrapped in a thin mattress and quilt he had bought for his wedding night.

The horns and drums were soon overshadowed by the wailing of the dead man's father Yassin in the simple funeral procession along a Baghdad street.

''Oh God, Oh God,'' said the father, shaking with grief.

Nearby a tearful relative of Sami Abdel Wahid sat in a white pick-up truck wondering who had killed the 40-year-old father of three in the same rocket attack and why.

Like many Iraqis, Abdel Wahid had escaped suicide bombings and shootings in the past.

Two of Abdel Wahid's children -- Mai, 2, and Osama, 3 -- are handicapped.

At the funerals of the two men, people asked a question that has been posed since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein -- where is the security? After four months of political paralysis in Baghdad, Iraqi leaders have designated tough-talking Shi'ite Muslim politician Jawad al-Maliki to be prime minister and to form a national unity government.

But beyond the blast walls round the government complex in Baghdad, the bloodshed and funerals go on.

In Baghdad alone today, seven car bombs killed at least eight people and wounded about 80.

REUTERS SHB RAI0023