Stryker Brigade News

The Sunni militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq had claimed the area as its base, and U.S. commanders have spent much of the year trying to pry Dora from its grip. At least 233 U.S. troops have been killed or injured in Dora's trash-strewn, bullet-scarred streets since January, according to military figures.

When soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, at Ft. Lewis, Wash., rolled in at the end of June, children as young as 10 tossed grenades at them, and a 13-year-old sprayed them with gunfire. The roads were laced with huge bombs that tore through their Stryker armored vehicles.

This summer the military has walled off entire sections of Dora. Soldiers have gone door-to-door, collecting photographs, fingerprints and retinal scans of every military-age man.

With the district locked down, life has started to return to the streets. Children once confined to their homes are now seen riding their bikes, and a handful of displaced Sunni families have moved back, said Iraqi soldiers in the district. About 300 shops have opened in the once-deserted market, where boarded-up buildings, shattered windows and piles of rubble reveal the ferocity of the fighting that took place in its narrow streets and alleys.

But U.S. soldiers say they fear progress could quickly be reversed if their numbers are reduced. Although residents offer a grudging acceptance of U.S. troops here, the mostly Sunni population remains deeply suspicious of Iraqi government forces, seeing them as allied with Shiite Muslim militias.

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