In keeping with a routine built up over around 10 months, soldiers backed by helicopters and armoured vehicles cordoned off the neighbourhood, seen as hostile to US forces, and conducted a methodical house-to-house search.

The sweep comes after the military launched Operation Iron Promise, aimed at crushing foreign fighters and extremists who have moved in around Baghdad, but many soldiers appear disappointed to be still hunting insurgents a year after the war to oust former dictator Saddam Hussein was launched.

"I guess I kind of expected it to thin out, but I suppose they're testing us," said Staff Sergeant Griffiths, whose team is conducting one of its last big sweeps before handing over command to incoming US troops and heading home.

"The guys who come after us are going to be doing this sort of thing on a weekly basis," he said, as a crowd of amused children circled around his men in the late evening.

The routine is the same, but the soldiers' techniques have altered.

Gone is the door-kicking, lock-bashing, gun-in-your face entries of just six months ago.

Today, an Iraqi language recording is played over a loud speaker at the top of the street to explain to startled residents what is happening while heavily armed, but smiling men bang politely on outside gates.

Military commanders also believe people are growing tired of fighting.

"The people have seen the greener side and they don't want to go back now," said Lieutenant Colonel Charles Williams. "They know that their son or daughter could be caught up if they look the other way."

Al-Jihad has been the site of several attacks on security personnel and the 1st Cavalry believes insurgents who have infiltrated the quarter in southwest Baghdad are launching rocket and mortar strikes at their nearby base.

As Bradley fighting vehicles take up positions on every street corner and lightless helicopters circle overhead, small teams of troops start rousting people out of their homes and beds.

The frustration at the repeated exercise is evident as soldiers explain yet again to locals that they are not allowed to have handguns in their home, even for self-defence, although AK-47 assault rifles are permitted.

"You're only allowed 50 rounds of AK and one magazine, you'll have to get rid of the other one," said one soldier through his translator, teeth clenched.

Some people are annoyed as their homes and belongings are searched, while others come forward and tell of seeing vehicles draw up at night in a vacant lot to fire rockets into the distance.

"It's a balance that you have to try to maintain, to not alienate the good people here," said Williams, who remembers May 2003 as a time when attacks were being launched on his base every night.

A year on, perhaps the most deadly danger for US troops is the improvised explosive device or IED, army speak for homemade bombs, that are set with ever-more complex detonation systems.

"The longer you're here, the more fatalistic you become," a soldier on the last vehicle, the most dangerous position, in 1st Cavalry's convoy told AFP along a dark stretch of deserted road.

"If you hit one, you want to hope it's a big one that turns you into a pink ball," rather than leave you maimed, he said.

WAR.WIRE