U.S. troops improve life in Iraqi quarter

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Amariya neighborhood has won a reputation as the most fearsome quarter of the capital, with car bombs, snipers and frequent clashes between U.S. forces and hardened Sunni Arab fighters.

But over the last few weeks, U.S. officials and Iraqi residents say, life has improved markedly in the notorious quarter, thanks to a U.S.-led effort to improve security and services.

On a tour of the largely Sunni Arab district with U.S. soldiers Tuesday, a day in which at least 60 mutilated bodies were found elsewhere in Baghdad and violence left another 23 dead across Iraq, schoolchildren walked home along streets recently cleared of rotting garbage mounds. Young men emerged from newly reopened shops on main thoroughfares. Women shopped at outdoor produce stands.

"Electricity is a problem, jobs are a problem, there's no gas, but thank God," said one woman as she gestured toward a group of U.S. soldiers, "security has gotten better."

The improvement in Amariya has come at a price, however.

Lt. Col. Gian Gentile, the 4th Infantry Division squadron commander in charge acknowledged in an interview that he's had to move troops from other nearby neighborhoods under his command to bolster security in Amariya.

He's also had to close off the western Baghdad neighborhood to all but two entrances in an effort to staunch the flow of Sunni Arab insurgents and Shiite militia members in and out of Amariya. And he has watched helplessly as the district's Shiite population plummets. Once 15 percent, it is now less than 2 percent, he said, part of a displacement crisis.

But though Sunni Arab militants continue to use Amariya as a haven, the general mood toward Americans has shifted as Iraq's Shiite-led elected government began to exert its muscle. In anti-Sunni reprisals that followed the Feb. 22 bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, many Sunnis in Amariya came to see the Americans as the only force capable of protecting them from Shiite revenge.

Once he took over the district, Gentile softened his approach, ordering his men to drive slowly and not brandish weapons at passing vehicles.

Gentile took other practical steps to improve the area's quality of life. After more than a dozen suicide bombs hit a pair of checkpoints along a main street in June and July, Gentile simply removed the checkpoints. As many as 60 percent of the businesses that were shut down along the street have reopened.