BAGHDAD -- It's been more than a month since Hassan Hadi watched as his co-workers were executed one by one at the Happiness Bakery, and he can't stop replaying the moment when fate spared him.
In a small apartment just a block from the site of the slaughter, a relative of one of the dead tucks a pistol into his waistband and slides a grenade into his coat pocket as he ponders revenge.
And in the gloomy dissecting hall of Baghdad's central morgue, a doctor who examined the bakery victims laughs weakly to himself as still more bodies arrive at the crowded facility.
"The cases we are getting are unbelievable," Dr. Taha Qassim says. "Huge crimes, assassinations, beheadings. Why only today I dissected three beheaded bodies. We will probably break the record for beheaded cadavers in any forensic department in the world."
As Iraq's newly elected leaders cobble together the foundation of a fledgling democracy, a killing epidemic has taken hold of this troubled nation.
Ministry of Health statistics show that record numbers of Iraqi civilians are coming to violent ends, particularly in Baghdad.
Political assassinations and bombings have garnered worldwide attention. But Iraqi officials say violence unrelated to the insurgency is growing and Iraqis are more likely to die at the hands -- or in the cross-fire -- of kidnappers, carjackers and angry neighbors than they are from car bombs.
In some cases, authorities say, the motives are so opaque that they cannot tell if they are investigating a crime disguised as an act of war or a political assassination masquerading as a violent business dispute.
Unnatural causes
In Baghdad alone, officials at the central morgue counted 8,035 deaths by unnatural causes in 2004, up from 6,012 the previous year when the United States invaded Iraq. In 2002, the final year of the Saddam Hussein's regime, the morgue examined about 1,800 bodies.
Of the deaths occurring now, 60 percent are caused by gunshot wounds, officials say, and most are unrelated to the insurgency. Between 20 and 30 bodies arrive at the morgue every day, and the victims are overwhelmingly male.
Much of the violence, officials say, is inspired by the ethnic, tribal and religious rivalries that were held in check by Saddam's brutal rule. The rivalries and a ready supply of firearms are a deadly combination that has let loose a wave of vengeance killings, tribal vendettas, mercenary kidnappings and thievery.
"The only virtue of the old regime is that Iraq enjoyed a state of stability," said Lt. Faris Jubrail of the Baghdad police. "It was a reaction to the huge size of punishment that the regime would practice. This would never have happened then."
Police say they are also growing increasingly worried about the recent arrival of organized criminal groups who trade in arms, drugs and stolen cars and blackmail people. In some cases, police say, insurgents have paid gangs of thugs to kidnap doctors and engineers or kill barbers for giving Western-style haircuts.
Police say the gangs aren't motivated by a desire to end the occupation -- they're just looking to make a buck.
"There are many different ways people meet martyrdom now," an Iraqi police spokesman said dryly. "In the old days, these things were contained by the regime, but now they are unleashed."
An example of one such incident, the officer said, was the brazen killing of 11 workers and customers Feb. 11 at the Happiness Bakery in New Baghdad, a working-class Shiite Muslim suburb on the capital's east side.
Investigators first suspected Sunni Muslim insurgents -- the bakeries had images of Shiite clerics and posters urging customers to vote in last month's elections, and the attack occurred during the run up to Ashura, a major Shiite holiday.
Police changed their thinking when witnesses recognized several killers as Shiites. Authorities now suspect a tribal vendetta. They speculate that a gang may have been hired to commit the crime and make it appear as if it was done by insurgents.
Hadi, 30, said a crowd of hungry customers was clamoring for warm loaves of breakfast "samoon" that Friday morning at the popular bakery on Martyrs Street. Hadi was busy twisting gobs of dough into loaves, while baker Ali Salim hoisted them into the oven with a broad wooden paddle.
They joked as they worked. "We were kidding our younger worker Mustafa," Hadi recalled. "We were making fun of his big nose."
The laughter stopped abruptly when gunfire exploded just outside the bakery. Beyond Hadi's view, three cars loaded with armed men had just emptied onto the street and the gunmen were rushing the stores. "God is the greatest!" a gunman screamed. "There is no God but God!"
Alarm turned to terror within the Happiness Bakery as a second burst of gunfire shattered the front window and tore through the cashier, killing him.
Terrified
Hadi slipped behind an enormous bread mixer and peeked at the front door. He watched a man wearing a T-shirt and a black mask enter the bakery. He was holding a Kalashnikov rifle.
"I was so terrified to know what kind of weapon it was," Hadi said. "Then the most terrible moment came: The shooting was inside the shop and I was feeling the bullets were killing us one by one." Salim, the baker, died in front of his oven. Another employee, Abdul Rehman, was shot as he leaped over the bread mixer. Hadi felt a bullet tear through his hip.
As he braced himself for the coup de grace, Hadi suddenly heard someone shouting at the gunman: "Come on, finish them up! We are under attack! Let's go!" Within seconds, the gunmen were gone and 11 people lay dead or dying.
Hadi's brother Farooq, 23, also works at the bakery. He and Mustafa, the boy they were teasing, had locked themselves in a toilet during the attack. As bullets smashed into the door and transom, they held their breath and dared not make a noise.
When it was over, Farooq Hadi drove his brother and Abdul Rehman, who had been shot several times, to the hospital.
"Even when we drove to the hospital, he was only repeating, 'Oh, Ali,' " Farooq Hadi said, referring to an expression Shiites often use in moments of pain or trouble. Ali was the prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law.
"Then, as we were getting closer and closer, his voice was getting fainter and fainter, until he was silent by the time we reached the hospital. It seems he had died by then."
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