U.S., Iraqi troops face test at battle of Creek Road

By Peter Graff

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The fighters came across the stinking creek and within hours they had overrun three Iraqi army checkpoints. U.S. forces rushed to help Iraqi troops regroup.

The battle of Creek Road in Baghdad formed just a small part of the fight that raged for days across Iraq last week and then ended as suddenly as it began.

Last week's upsurge in fighting in Iraq began with a crackdown launched by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Basra against followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

But its sudden spread throughout other southern towns and neighborhoods of Baghdad that are Sadr strongholds, quickly turned it into a nationwide crisis on a scale Iraq had not seen since at least the first half of last year.

There are now few signs left of the fighting, which ended with a ceasefire announced by Sadr on Sunday.

"This road we're going down -- every alley we were fired on. And then: nothing. Kids playing soccer. This place is surreal," said Lieutenant-Colonel Kevin Petit, whose U.S. squadron patrols the neighborhood of Ghazaliya, across the creek from the bustling militia stronghold of Shula.

Iraqi troops are back in control of the checkpoints. The markets on the opposite side of the creek are again open, although the only bridge across it is still shut to cars.

Children play in a freshly dug mud-hole next to the sewage-filled creek, whose foul stench led the Americans to dub the nearby road "Shit Creek Street".

Black flags of Shi'ite Islam hang from walls. Among the few signs of the anger, fresh graffiti in English and Arabic declares "No, no occupation!"

U.S. and Iraqi commanders say casualties among their troops were surprisingly few despite an all-out onslaught by Sadr fighters that lasted for days. U.S. convoys are again able to drive through nearly all of the city with little sense of alarm.

But the fighting in Baghdad tested the loyalties of Shi'ite Iraqi troops against a Shi'ite foe, and served as a reminder of how fragile are the security improvements that U.S. authorities have touted over the past year.

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"Last week, there was an RPG point over there. That was a machine gun point," Petit says, gesturing toward a meat and vegetable market in Shula across the creek. "They were in the north shooting and we were in the south shooting back at them."

The market is overshadowed by a giant portrait of Shi'ite clerics, including Moqtada al-Sadr's slain father Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, whose image is ubiquitous in areas loyal to his son.

Petit's side of the creek is Ghazaliya, a once prosperous mixed neighborhood that is now split between a dirt poor Shi'ite north abutting Shula and a Sunni Arab south.