Military Cites Drawdown in Parts of Iraq

In recent weeks, the number of road bombings, suicide attacks and shooting rose as the election neared, with assassins targeting Shiite Muslim government officials and party members. U.S. military intelligence officers said the attacks were part of a trend of sectarian and politically driven violence in regions of mixed religion and ethnicity such as Diyala, where the population of 1.8 million is predominantly Sunni Arab, about 35 percent Shiite and about 20 percent Kurdish.

A spurt in attacks this fall killed dozens of Iraqi civilians and police around Diyala, in what Wollan said was an effort to intimidate the public before the elections.

Still, some residents of Baqubah, a city of 300,000 people where about 70 attacks occur each month, say they feel safer now than last year.

Mohamed Ali Hassan stood among the candy and key chains on sale in his shop in Baqubah, describing the "black days" in this city, when insurgents roamed the streets with Kalashnikov assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, engaging U.S. forces in large-scale firefights. Last year, insurgents succeeded more than once in destroying or taking over government buildings in Baqubah, throwing the local leadership and police into disarray. Then, women and children ran off the streets at the sight of approaching Humvees.

"It was like the black history of Iraq," he said.

Local citizens and officials say Baqubah now has an expanded, more assertive and better-trained police force, although corruption and other abuses persist and residents must pay bribes to police to get out of jail. Hassan used to shut his shop early, but now, under newly repaired streetlights, he keeps it open until the 10 p.m. curfew, tripling his earnings.

South of the city in the predominantly Sunni suburb of Buhriz, a bastion of former Baath Party leaders and loyalists of Saddam Hussein, residents in 2004 were hostile and fighting was fierce as they opposed U.S. forces as occupiers, said Mayor Hassan Alwan. Today, he and other Sunnis in Buhriz say they hope such democratic exercises as Thursday's elections will help determine their future.

"Of course everything is getting better concerning the security. There's a crucial difference between last year and this year," said Rafad Salih, 33, an off-duty police officer in the Baqubah neighborhood of Tahrir, where newly painted garbage cans line the main streets.

Staff writer Bradley Graham in Washington contributed to this report.