Al Qaeda sows fear after sunset in Iraq's north

By Sabah al-Bazi

SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) - In northern Iraq, residents fearful of al Qaeda militants hurry home before the sun sets. Cities are virtual ghost towns after dark.

The U.S. military and Iraqi officials have hailed vastly better security in Baghdad, western Anbar province and areas south of the capital, which has allowed people to venture out at night to shop at markets and eat at restaurants.

But in the cities of Samarra, Baquba and Mosul, the militants still sow fear.

"When I don't see al Qaeda wandering around Samarra, pointing weapons in the faces of Iraqis and killing and kidnapping, then I will say security has improved," said grocer Nihad Hameed in the city, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad.

"We come back home at 7 p.m. like chickens. No one can move after that."

U.S. and Iraqi security forces as well as Sunni Arab tribal units have expelled Sunni Islamist al Qaeda from its strongholds in Anbar and the roads around Baghdad, which the militants used as a springboard to launch attacks on the capital.

Many of the militants have since regrouped in northern provinces where U.S. forces were less concentrated and Sunni Arab tribal units had only recently been established.

U.S. and Iraqi troops have launched offensives against al Qaeda this year in northern provinces such as Diyala, Salahuddin and Nineveh. But the campaign is expected to take time.

"Everything in Baquba stops the minute it gets dark," Nada Amaar, a doctor, said from the capital of ethnically and religiously mixed Diyala province.

Ali Muhsin Dawud, 45, a car dealer in Baquba, said he was thinking of moving to another city.

"NO SAFE HAVEN LEFT"

Militant violence in northern provinces comprises 60 percent of all attacks in Iraq, with an average of 66 incidents reported a day during the past year, said Captain Stephen Bomar, a spokesman for the U.S. military in the north.

Attacks overall in the north have slowed in recent months, falling 42 percent since June, compared to a 60 percent drop for the whole of Iraq.

"There is not a safe haven left for these insurgents anywhere, and an unorganized movement to the north is believed to be a last effort to randomly hurt the Iraqi people," said Bomar, adding safety was getting better every day in the north.

In Nineveh, however, attacks have actually risen -- the only part of Iraq where this has happened -- the U.S. military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said last week.