BAGHDAD — After 10 weeks of fierce combat, an odd sense of normality has returned to this capital's most battle-scarred neighborhood.
The break in running clashes between U.S. troops and Shiite Muslim militiamen loyal to outspoken cleric Muqtada Sadr has brought a tenuous peace to the sprawling district known as Sadr City. By most accounts, Sadr's declaration of a truce two weeks ago was a collateral benefit of Iraq's return to a semblance of self-rule.
The militantly anti-U.S. cleric has expressed a strong desire that his popular movement be represented in national elections scheduled for January. Sadr wants a place at the bargaining table as a political leader, not a warlord.
"We are not terrorists as some are describing us," said Sheik Abdul-Hadi Darraji, the manager of Sadr's compound in Sadr City. "We are serving our country."
The compound was twice destroyed in U.S. attacks in the spring -- and twice rebuilt. On the outside wall, black and green flags memorialize young "martyrs" lost in fighting against the "infidels" from Najaf to Karbala to Baghdad.
In one-sided battles, U.S. troops have killed as many as 900 militiamen in Sadr City since April. There are no accurate figures for civilian casualties. Eight U.S. soldiers also were killed, all but one on the first day of the fighting.
U.S. troops who have resumed regular foot patrols in the community of about 2.5 million have hardly been shot at in recent days.
Some express a sense of disbelief. Until recently, said one soldier, "a patrol here was more like a rolling firefight."
Masked gunmen outfitted in black no longer roam the streets or peer from alleys, weapons at the ready.
The U.S.-backed district council held its first meeting in more than three months Wednesday.
The sessions were suspended after the slaying of the council's president, one of two neighborhood representatives found beaten to death and strung from street lamps.
A crude sign attached to a slain councilman's chest proclaimed: "This is the fate of collaborators and spies."
Sadr's representatives cited the "public interest" when they declared a truce last month.
By the U.S. Army's account, influential Shiite tribal sheiks pressured Sadr to urge his fighters to lay down their arms.
"There is a clear groundswell here that says, 'Calm down the violence,' " said Lt. Col. Gary Volesky, who heads the 1st Cavalry battalion that patrols Sadr City. "We know we're not going to win this thing by fighting, by pulling the trigger."
Though virulently anti-American, Sadr's faction is separate from the largely Sunni Muslim insurgency against U.S. troops and their allies that began a year ago. Former loyalists of ousted President Saddam Hussein, who favored the minority Sunni Arab population, are thought to be ringleaders of that armed insurgency, along with anti-U.S. nationalists and religious militants, both Iraqi and foreign.
The Sunni-led insurgency wants the new interim government to fail. By contrast, Shiite activists -- including Sadr's movement -- back the idea of a new government that is representative of the majority Shiite population.
Many in Sadr City and other Shiite enclaves fear that the current turmoil in Iraq could result in the return of Hussein's Baath Party apparatus, which repressed Shiites throughout Iraq.
"We know the Baathists are plotting," Darraji said.
Polls show that Sadr's popularity among Iraqis rose dramatically during the spring uprising.
Sadr City was set up a generation ago as an urban renewal project to house migrant laborers from Iraq's Shiite south. It was the base of Sadr's father, Mohammed Sadeq Sadr, a revered Shiite cleric who was killed along with two of his sons in a hail of bullets during Hussein's rule -- an assassination widely attributed to the dictator's secret police.
Today, Sadr City is a densely populated warren of residential quarters, factories, shops and bumpy roads. The district is chronically short of proper sewage facilities, running water and other vital services.
The neighborhood, long called Saddam City, was renamed Sadr City after U.S.-led troops toppled Hussein. Many Shiites, including those in Sadr City, greeted U.S. troops as liberators. But relations soured amid deteriorating public services and a series of U.S. missteps -- including the death of a Shiite cleric who was killed here when an American tank ran over his vehicle.
Seizing on his father's popularity, Muqtada Sadr emerged as the spiritual leader of the Al Mahdi militia, a lightly trained but zealous force composed of thousands of mostly disadvantaged young men.
Despite constant tensions between Sadr supporters and occupying U.S. troops, Sadr City remained relatively peaceful -- until April.
