As the US military helicopters kicked up clouds of dust and the motorcades of Iraqi police gun-trucks screeched down the almost empty main street, the residents of Saab al-Bor could have been forgiven for thinking they were being invaded.

It was, however, just an excursion of government ministers delivering good news to the forlorn town outside Baghdad.

Good news in Iraq these days comes packaged in such a way as to remind locals that bad news is never far away. Few places know this quite as well as Saab al-Bor. Less than a year ago, it was a battleground for al-Qa'ida-linked Sunni guerrillas and the Mahdi Army, their Shia foes.

Its population fled, and a town of 100,000 souls dwindled to 3,000. US and Iraqi forces have fought hard for months to drive the gunmen out of town, and seem to have succeeded. The population is back to about 23,000, encouraged by a US-led effort to reconcile sheikhs of rival tribes and by a government offer of a million dinars (€560) to each family that goes back home.

The US surge has, for now, put the brakes on the civil war. But, in a town that is three-quarters empty still, social services have all but collapsed and deep scars of mistrust remain etched on the people.

Murdered

"I don't trust any Sunnis, I can't go to their part of town," said a 40-year-old Shia woman, entirely clad in black robes and gloves, whose husband was murdered and son kidnapped by an al-Qa'ida group. Even the lean teenagers who make up the US-backed town militia of "concerned citizens" -- as yet unpaid, untrained, with uniforms and weapons begged or borrowed from older brothers in the army -- said they would not dare to cross into the Sunni areas.

Their job is to spot strangers who could be al-Qa'ida or Mahdi Army, though with no military experience and only two guns between three of them, the group on the town's main street were hard-pressed to say what they would do if they came across a terrorist cell.

"We'll do what we can," said Saher Saad Abdul, who admitted he'd only got his position thanks to family connections.

In the local clinic, understaffed because many medics are still too frightened to return, a nurse complained of only receiving three hours of electricity a day and obtaining nothing from the central government, despite assurances from visiting ministers that help was on its way. The town hall meeting was reminiscent of the chaotic gatherings of 2003, when US soldiers would marshal local leaders together to decide how to rebuild their broken country.

In Saab al-Bor, as in much of Iraq, progress is measured in terms of how close the country can scramble back to that summer of squandered opportunity. Roadside bombs may be down from 3,239, in March, to 1,560, in October, but that is still only comparable with September 2005, when Iraq was inching toward meltdown.

The complaints from local sheikhs and officials to the government panel were also echoes of four years ago -- no electricity, no cooking gas, no jobs.

The key difference now, though, is that Iraqis have their own government to complain to; their own troops and police at checkpoints on the streets. Whether that government, paralysed by internal squabbling, can respond, is still an open question. But the army, with US backing, appears to be tackling some militant groups.

Armed

After the meeting, the government officials decided the town was safe enough to walk down the main street to visit the clinic and school. Only with an armed escort, though. more than 100 soldiers and security guards filled the main drag, overlooked by a score of gun trucks, an old Soviet tank and circling Apache helicopters.

The delegation walked a few hundred yards as black-clad women, many with disabled children in wheelchairs made out of plastic garden chairs, flocked to them to beg for help.

And while security has returned to the town, there are many who doubt that it can last long, if joblessness is the norm. Saab al-Bor is an island of relative safety in what was, until a few months ago, the badlands just west of the capital. Without armed convoys, people are afraid to commute to Baghdad to seek work.

"Joblessness is the biggest problem," said Safar Hamid, a generator repairman. "The unemployed will be dragged back into crime and terror because of money."

On a wall near his shop was a reminder of how close the militia presence is: beneath a red and blue Pepsi advert someone had sprayed "The Mahdi Army is the army of righteousness". No one had bothered -- or perhaps dared -- to remove it. (© The Times, London)

- James Hider