"The types of attacks (by al-Qaida), the methods, have remained very specific -- vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, suicide bombers, some small arms fire -- but their ability to make them effective has really dropped off," said Col. Allen Batschelet, the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division's deputy commander.

"We used to see VBIEDs that were extremely technical and with a lot of explosive material. Now they're very amateurish and the explosive material is down to the 10 to 15 pounds (range), where we used to see some of these vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices or deep-buried IEDs that were in the hundreds of pounds of explosive materials."

Heavy fighting between U.S. and Iraqi forces against the Mehdi Army and Special Groups ended in mid-May after Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army, pushed out of southern Sadr City, negotiated a new cease-fire with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a political rival. High-ranking cadres in both organizations, many of them believed to be the same, mostly fled to Iran where Sadr returned many months ago to resume his religious studies to gain in clerical rank and thus influence among Shiites in Iraq. Those left behind only sporadically engage in violence.

The neighboring Adhamiya neighborhood is a sectarian mishmash. Closest to the Tigris River that flows through Baghdad, an area known as old Adhamiya, in which the people are mainly Sunni Muslims, was once a support base for al-Qaida. Other areas of the district are Shiite.

In August, according to U.S. intelligence sources, attacks in northeastern Baghdad as a whole against U.S. forces numbered 13. There was an equal number against Iraqi civilians -- by al-Qaida -- to stir up sectarianism and five attacks against Iraqi security forces. There were 95 attacks against all three in July, down from 740 in April.

Sadr has announced a disbanding of the Mehdi Army and ordered his followers to instead join a new organization focused on social improvement for Shiites. He has warned, however, he will form a new "elite" armed force to fight U.S. forces if Washington does not set a date for withdrawal from Iraq.

Any force formed would need weaponry and munitions on site. However, those are the kinds of materials that U.S. and Iraqi forces are now regularly seizing, with much of the information as to their locations coming from Iraqi civilians disenchanted with the militias.

"Population loyalty is shifting," said a U.S. military officer. "The population has seen the difference in how their lives can be without (the Mehdi Army) and with the day-to-day operations of the Iraqi security forces and coalition forces."

Weapons seizures are a continuous activity. But another weapon is being used by the Americans and the Iraqi government. Hearts-and-minds community cleanups, health clinics, infrastructure rebuilding and people-engagement projects are making northeastern Baghdad an inhospitable environment for gunmen and their weapons.

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