Bomb blast and flames -- a close call in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, June 14 (Reuters) The familiar sound of a siren blared as I drove around Baghdad searching for signs of a government security crackdown.

A police car sped past. Seconds later, a car bomb targeting the vehicle exploded just 10 metres away.

After covering the relentless bloodshed in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003, I had photographed so many victims of bombings, sectarian beheadings and shootings that I thought I had grown numb to violence.

But nothing prepared me for the scene unfolding on the wide, two-laned road in Baghdad's northern Qahira district, a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite area of the capital.

The blast sent shrapnel flying in all directions as huge balls of flames moved skyward. People fled the scene screaming and crying.

The charred body of a dead man sat upright, engulfed by huge flames. A teenage boy was also on fire. He managed to grab a rod extended to him, and was pulled out of the inferno.

I counted four bodies, but couldn't tell if they were dead or seriously wounded.

BURNING VICTIM I had always arrived at the scene after the bombings or shootings. This was the first time I was actually there at the moment of attack.

And now I was watching its victims. I have never seen someone just sit there and burn, a helpless victim of Iraq's carnage.

A police source later said two people were killed and seven were wounded in the blast, which he said had apparently targeted the police patrol which had swept past me.

Like many victims of Iraq's daily violence, most of the casualties in Qahira were probably civilians caught up in the war between Sunni Arab insurgents and the Shi'ite-led government's security forces.

I happened to be there too because I had been looking for signs of extra troops on the streets after the government said it would launch a security crackdown today to curb the haemorrhaging violence across Baghdad.

With none in sight, I headed back to the office. That's when I had my brush with death.

Had I been a few metres further forward, I may have been the person melting in a Baghdad street.

I managed to regain enough composure to capture images of the burning victims. And when I returned to the office I handed out sweets -- a celebration of life after my close call.

Reuters SY GC2146