An edgy normality returned to Baghdad yesterday with the lifting of a curfew imposed to stem days of sectarian bloodshed but heightened fears of civil war saw families fleeing hostile neighbors and manning barricades. The Iraqi army said it was deploying some of its few tanks around the capital — a partly symbolic move given the large if discreet presence of heavily armed US forces — after a mortar attack killed four people in a Shiite district of Sunni west Baghdad.The US ambassador, closely engaged in efforts to forge a national unity government, acknowledged Iraqis “came to the brink of civil war” after Wednesday’s suspected Al-Qaeda bombing of a Shiite shrine but said: “Things are getting better.” But the Sunni minority’s main political bloc said it was not ready to end the boycott of coalition talks which it announced in protest at reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques; police tallies indicate that over 200 people died in the five days of violence. Still fearful of sectarian reprisals, some families on both sides of Baghdad’s religious divide abandoned homes where they felt threatened by neighbors, or barricaded themselves in.
Iraq’s Defense Ministry said security forces had killed 35 “terrorists” and detained 487 since Wednesday. State television later announced the capture of a possibly Syrian aide to Al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi; few details were available. The ministry said it had lifted the curfew to let people go back to work. Overnight curfews remain in force across Iraq. “It was a courageous decision to impose the (daytime) curfew and lifting it was more courageous,” spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Mohammed told a news conference, saying the security forces had “exercised restraint” to avoid inflaming passions.