BAGHDAD Khalil Hussein lights up a cigarette as he stands at the graveside of his teenage boy Ahmed, killed by a suicide bombing in Baghdad just four months ago.

In line with tradition, Hussein came to the Abu Hanifa cemetery in the district of Adhamiyah to honour the memory of his 18-year-old son during Eidul Azha, the Muslim feast of the sacrifice.

Open since 2006, the cemetery has the macabre distinction of being a resting place for mainly victims of violent death in the Iraqi capital -- and its tombs now contain the remains of 6,000 people.

It is important to come to see him. I think I will join him soon. I remember when he was alive, when we laughed together. Its like Im with him again, said Hussein, a 42-year-old Arab.

Abu Hanifa was once a park where lovers met, but in 2006 it was turned into a cemetery.

The day it opened in July 2006, the gravedigger had thought he would only be burying a sheep trader. But a car bomb exploded soon afterwards, and another 21 bodies followed.

Just over two years later, more than 6,000 bodies have been laid to rest in the cemetery near the Abu Hanifa mosque that lies near the bridge dividing Adhamiyah from the neighbouring district of Kadhimiyah.

Cemetery warden Nasser Walid Ali said 95 per cent of those buried there perished in attacks, reeling off a list of the killers American soldiers, mortar bombs, Shiite militiamen from the Mahdi Army, al Qaeda.

Khalil Hussein pointed to the tombs containing the remains of another seven relatives killed along with his son near the Abu Hanifa mosque on August 17 by a bomber disguised as a woman wearing an explosives belt.

In all, Al-Qaeda has killed 11 members of my family. The Mahdi Army killed two, he said as he took a long drag on his cigarette.

As he looked over his sons grave, Hussein took out a colour photocopy of an identity card. This belongs to the suicide bomber who killed my son. A 22-year-old Yemeni who came here via Syria.

He said he doesnt carry a photo of his son, but is never without the picture of his killer. I dont really know why.

Nearby, a woman sits on a grave, weeping for her 21-year-old son who worked at Abu Hanifa mosque and was killed in July 2007.

He was washing (near the mosque), said 45-year-old Salima al-Mkotar.
There were gunshots and then I heard Firas is dead. He had two bullets in the head and three in his back.

Last year, for the first Eidul Azha festival since the death of her son, she came to the cemetery with five other people and stayed just five minutes.

I was really afraid that al Qaeda would come. Im a Shiite. My son was killed because he was Shiite. I had to leave this district.

This year, Mkotar came on Monday, for the first day of Al-Azha, then again on Tuesday. And she said she plans to come again on Wednesday before heading back to her new home in Al-Bayaa, a Shiite neighbourhood in south Baghdad.

I vowed never to step foot into this mosque until his murderers were killed.

Adhamiyah has become safer since the Sunni militias known as Sahwas took to the streets towards the end of 2007, joining the US military to fight al Qaeda extremists.

And last month the bridge over the Tigris between Adhamiyah and Kadhimiyah was reopened, more than three years after being closed when a stampede during a Shiite festival killed almost 1,000 pilgrims.

Haidar Karim, a 31-year-old grave digger, said he no longer fears al Qaeda although he recalled the day when fighters from the network came and warned him not to bury policemen or soldiers.

My predecessor refused to comply when they ordered him not to prepare for the burial of one victim. The next day they gunned him down.

At the end of last year, Karim said, masked men burst into the cemetery and told him A body is about to arrive; do not bury it...I just left, and the family had to bury their son themselves.