Back to Haifa St as fighting eases

Updated on 17 March 2008

With its darkest days behind it, Shi'a families are moving back to Haifa Street now that the fighting has eased.

Haifa Street is a two-mile-long stretch of road, parallel to the River Tigris, and running northwest from Assassin's Gate, the entrance to the Americans' Green Zone in west Baghdad.

The story of our poll is that Iraqis are becoming more hopeful about their future, with 80 per cent saying they're living in peace.

In Baghdad, not so long ago, bombings were an everyday occurrence. Now they're less common.

The Haifa Street district, which includes a sprawling area of back alleys, links Sunni and Shi'a Muslim neighbourhoods.

It was Saddam Hussein who gave it its name, in honour of the Israeli port city, which Arabs consider part of Palestine. In the 1980s its big Soviet-style apartment blocks housed important Ba'ath Party officials.

Since Saddam's downfall it's been the scene of heavy fighting, between the Americans, Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda fighters, and more recently between sectarian militia.