Extra American forces were deployed to back up the Iraqi positions in the three neighborhoods, said U.S. Army Col. Bill Hickman, who commands the area encompassing the districts on the west side of the Tigris River.
The area has had trouble since February 2006, when the bombing of a venerated Shiite mosque north of Baghdad unleashed sectarian violence across the capital and the nation.
In November 2006, Shiite militiamen forced most Sunni Arab families out of Hurriya, now a Mahdi Army stronghold.
In Ghazaliya, Iraqi soldiers helped the Mahdi Army expand the neighborhood's northern Shiite section before the local commander, known as a Sadr sympathizer, was transferred out. The area is now split, with Sunnis in the south and Shiites in the north.
Shula remains a Mahdi Army bastion.
The most recent attacks here began just hours after Iraqi forces hit Shiite militia positions in Basra, 275 miles to the south. A U.S. military map of Hickman's area shows 13 red arrows indicating attack spots, many of which were hit more than once with rocket-propelled grenades and mortar, small-arms and machine-gun fire.
U.S. Army Capt. Jeremy Ussery said the fighting was constant for four or five days. He spoke while standing on a highway overpass overlooking the vacant mosque that had served as the Iraqi army battle station. Iraqi troops remained on the roof Wednesday, and U.S. tanks idled in the streets below, keeping watch as Iraqi security forces frisked people entering the neighborhood.
Ussery said the Iraqis, and U.S. forces stationed on the overpass throughout the fighting, took more hits than he could count.
In the meantime, Hussein's phone was ringing with the threats against his family and with warnings that militia fighters were crossing the canal a few miles away.
From the decrepit buildings and narrow alleys on the near side of the canal, the gunmen took aim at Iraqi forces and at the U.S. troops who came to their aid.
Petit compared the combat to the onslaught he faced in Mogadishu at the height of fighting there, when Somali gunmen would pop up from behind garbage piles or crumbling walls, or simply leap into the middle of the road and open fire.
He indicated a dirt road leading away from the canal.
"We came down it one day and from every angle, we were shot at," Petit said. He had watched the grenade slam into the side of the vehicle in front of him. It was a dud and fell to the ground, like a rubber-tipped arrow whose suction cup fails, he said.
As the fighting raged, the bridge linking Ghazaliya to Shula was closed. Only pregnant women trying to reach a nearby hospital in Shula were allowed to pass, and they had to walk.
On Wednesday, the bridge had reopened for pedestrians only. A U.S. M-88 armored vehicle with a .50-caliber machine gun sat in the middle.
Petit said the tide turned in this area Friday, after Iraqi troops repelled an attack at one of their positions without U.S. assistance. It emboldened them, he said.
He is confident that things will stay quiet in his corner of Baghdad, Petit said, because Iraqi forces here proved tougher than militia members had expected.
"But of course, the guys shooting at you have the last word," he said.
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tina.susman@latimes.com
Times staff writer Ned Parker in Baghdad and a special correspondent in Basra contributed to this report.
