Attacks are down 75 percent in recent months in a perilous stretch of neighborhoods in northeastern Baghdad, prompting a U.S. military officer to proclaim Monday that security there is "dramatically improving."Concerned citizens have helped troops improve security in parts of Baghdad, a military official says. People line the streets, cars congest them, trash collectors and other city workers have returned, local leaders are holding community meetings again and "markets have come back like gangbusters," said Army Col. Don Farris, commander of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division. He added that the largely Sunni al Qaeda in Iraq presence has been "crushed" since the beginning of May. However, there are still dangers, most notably the threats posed by Iranian-backed Shiite militants, Farris said.
Speaking to Pentagon reporters via video link from Baghdad, Farris cited several factors he said contributed to the improving security situation. Among them is the "surge," the additional U.S. troops deployed earlier this year.
Also helping improve the security situation are the cease-fire by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army and the development of a program that employs "concerned local citizens" to assist U.S. and Iraqi forces, Farris said. Some of those citizens are members of local Sunni "awakening councils," comprised of former militants -- often armed -- who create neighborhood watch groups to root out the insurgent elements in an area.
Especially in the last six weeks, Farris said, civic and religious leaders have seen outsiders operating in the area and troops have made arrests, two Iranian operatives among them "From my foxhole, in our sector, it is working," he said of the improving security in the area. "I can only speak to what I see in my sector and I am encouraged."
Farris' sector -- which includes the Sunni-dominated district of Adhamiya and Sadr City, the Shiite slum where militants have demonstrated a strong presence -- has seen a "remarkable turnaround," he said.