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BAGHDAD - In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3,000 Iraqi families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence has dropped, the government said Saturday. Saad al-Azawi, his wife and four children are among them. They fled to Syria six months ago, leaving behind what had become one of the capital's more dangerous districts — west Baghdad's largely Sunni Khadra region.

The family had been living inside a vicious and bloody turf battle between al-Qaida in Iraq and Mahdi Army militiamen. But Azawi said things began changing, becoming more peaceful, in August when radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army fighters to stand down nationwide.

About the same time, the Khadra neighborhood Awakening Council rose up against brutal al-Qaida control — the imposition of its austere interpretation of Islam, along with the murder and torture of those who would not comply.

The uprising originated in Iraq's west and flowed into the capital. Earlier this year, the Sunni tribes and clans in the vast Anbar province began their own revolt and have successfully rid the largely desert region of al-Qaida control. At one point the terrorist group virtually controlled Anbar, often with the complicity of the vast Sunni majority who welcomed the outsiders in their fight against American forces.

But, U.S. officials say, al-Qaida overplayed its hand with Iraq's Sunnis, who practice a moderate version of Islam. American forces were quick to capitalize on the upheaval, welcoming former Sunni enemies as colleagues in securing what was once the most dangerous region of the country. And as 30,000 additional U.S. forces arrived for the crackdown in Baghdad and central Iraq, the American commander, Gen. David Petraeus, began stationing many of them in neighborhood outposts. The mission was not only to take back control but to foster neighborhood groups like the one in Khadra to shake off al-Qaida's grip.

The 40-year-old al-Azawi, who has gone back to work managing a car service, said relatives and friends persuaded him to bring his family home.

"Six months ago, I wouldn't dare be outside, not even to stand near the garden gate by the street. Killings had become routine. I stopped going to work, I was so afraid," he said, chatting with friends on a street in the neighborhood. When he and his family joined the flood of Iraqi refugees to Syria the streets were empty by early afternoon, when all shops were tightly shuttered. Now the stores stay open until 10 p.m. and the U.S. military working with the neighborhood council is handing out $2,000 grants to shop owners who had closed their business. The money goes to those who agree to reopen or first-time businessmen.

Al-Azawi said he's trying to get one of the grants to open a poultry and egg shop that his brother would run.

"In Khadra, about 15 families have returned from Syria. I've called friends and family still there and told them it's safe to come home," he said. Sattar Nawrous, a spokesman for the Ministry of Displacement and Migration, said the al-Azawi family was among 3,100 that have returned to their homes in Baghdad in the past 90 days.

"In the past three months, the ministry did not register any forced displacement in the whole of Iraq," said Nawrous, who is a Kurd.

The claim could not be independently verified, but, if true, it would represent a dramatic end to the sectarian cleansing that has shredded the fabric of Baghdad's once mixed society.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071103/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

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ORIGINAL: baghdadi

Inshallah things will improve and continue in that direction. Family in Baghdad states the same things are improving I cant wait to go back to my home. It is still early but God willing this trend will continue.

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ORIGINAL: BREEZE

Power is back so gonna continue with what i was saying.and btw have to make a correction with what i wrote...its helicopters hovering around not roaming around... I just hope that the real reason why most of our people coming back is that the condition is getting better. But to what i know and is that most of them are coming back because they are running out of money since they have no work and just spending the money they got. Well some people are coming back and some are going out still so we really can't tell which is which. Some news are different with what is really happening. All we are hoping for is a lil bit of peace and security.

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ORIGINAL: baghdadi

2nd the Americans are not letting the militias come into people’s homes like in recent memory
3rd people are just tired of the killings

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ORIGINAL: baghdadi

Yes, sorry my statement was wrongly pharsed, but you see my point.

Down with Maliki, Iran, American Occupation, and not to forget the racist regional Kurdish gov't

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Is Iraq getting better?
By Jim Muir
BBC News, Baghdad  
Is Iraq getting better? The statistics say so, across the board. Over the past three months, there has been a sharp and sustained drop in all forms of violence. The figures for dead and wounded, military and civilian, have also greatly improved.

All across Baghdad, which has seen the worst of the violence, streets are springing back to life. Shops and restaurants which closed down are back in business. People walk in crowded streets in the evening, when just a few months ago they would have been huddled behind locked doors in their homes. Everybody agrees that things are much better. But is the improvement only skin deep? And will it last once the American troops, whose "surge" has clearly made a difference, begin to scale down?

In the past few days, two events have underlined big changes that have happened in recent months on both the Sunni and Shia sides of the Iraqi equation.

On Thursday, in a crowded public hall in the mainly Shia city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, the local police chief, Brig-Gen Ra'id Shaker Jawdat, bitterly denounced the Mehdi Army militia, accusing it of presiding over a four-year reign of terror there. It was an extraordinary occasion. One by one, men and women stood up and screamed abuse at the militia, blaming it for killing and torturing their loved ones. It could not have happened a few months ago, when the Mehdi Army - the military wing of the movement headed by the militant young Shia cleric, Moqtada Sadr - was the real power in the streets of Karbala.

A few days later, Moqtada Sadr ordered his followers to halt all forms of military action nationwide, even in self-defence. That was a turning-point in Baghdad too. The number of bodies being found daily, dumped randomly in the city after being abducted, tortured and killed in sectarian reprisals, dropped from dozens a day to less than a handful.
 
Scenes of rejoicing

On Friday, near Samarra to the north of Baghdad, fighters from a Sunni faction called the Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI) launched a surprise attack on positions held by al-Qaeda in the area. Police said the IAI killed 18 al-Qaeda militants and captured 16 others. Shortly afterwards, another Sunni group known as the 1920 Revolution Brigades launched a similar operation against al-Qaeda at al-Buhriz in Diyala province, also north of Baghdad. They captured 60 al-Qaeda suspects and handed them over to the Iraqi army, amidst scenes of rejoicing in the town's streets. These also were events that simply could not have happened until recently. Both the IAI and the 1920 Revolution Brigades used to be insurgent groups themselves, fighting alongside al-Qaeda against the multinational forces and Iraqi government troops.

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ORIGINAL: Calm

My cousin was abducted two weeks ago and tortured.  He had to pay $100,000 to be freed.  Himself with his family have escaped to Syria.  It's not all good news, but it has gone very quiet on the news, maybe because everyone is heading to Pakistan.

I pray to see peace again.