TARMIYA, Iraq — Before the U.S. military moved into this suburb north of Baghdad and cordoned it off with six miles of concertina wire, insurgents had the run of the place.
They launched nearly daily attacks on the police that whittled down the 40-member force by half. U.S. patrols often were targeted by car bombs and roadside explosives. In one week in March, a bomb killed four Iraqi soldiers and a sniper killed a police officer inside Tarmiya's bullet-pocked police headquarters.
On Thursday, during a short, highly choreographed gathering at Tarmiya's town center arranged by the U.S. military, residents of the predominantly Sunni Arab town expressed gratitude to U.S. troops for driving out insurgents and beginning rebuilding projects that included water services, a hospital renovation, road construction and refurbishment of a youth center.
Local politicians and other residents say security has improved dramatically.
Tarmiya is an example of a cordon strategy used in towns in Al Anbar province, including Tall Afar and Fallouja, in which U.S. troops clear areas of guerrillas, form a perimeter and develop Iraqi security forces in the hope that they will be strong enough to hold off the insurgency once American soldiers leave.
The military presented Tarmiya, a verdant, palm-shaded village along the Tigris River, as a good news story: a Sunni Arab community that welcomes American troops and dislikes the Sunni Arab-driven insurgency.
But townspeople also said that although active insurgents are no longer in their midst, they are unable to live normal lives because their freedom of movement is limited. Shiite militias have in effect cut them off from the capital.
"My 2-year-old son has hemophilia, but there is no medicine here," said Ahmad Abdullah, a construction worker. "Sometimes I try to go to Baghdad, but I am afraid because gunmen kill and kidnap those who try to go there."
Taxi driver Qusay Abdel Hussein said that a woman who was trying to go to Baghdad to shop for food last week was killed on the way, and that he knew a man who was kidnapped while headed to the capital and was being held for ransom.
"This is a rural place, and we have many farmers who can't take their harvests to Baghdad. We can't take documents to the government or see our relatives in Baghdad," Hussein said. "I haven't been to Baghdad for eight months now because of the bad situation. I need money, but I can't get it because all the banks are in Baghdad."
