In a final futile act of defiance as US-led forces closed in on the Iraqi capital in April 2003, the now executed dictator appeared atop a car in Adhamiyah before vanishing from view until his capture eight months later.

Residents of the neighbourhood, long a bastion of support for the old regime, played a prominent role in the anti-US insurgency led by the Sunni former elite that raged in the years after Saddam's overthrow.

But as a June 30 deadline looms for US troops to pull back from Adhamiyah and all of Iraq's urban areas, few in the neighbourhood are looking forward to their departure amid suspicions about the new Shiite-dominated Iraqi security forces that will take their place.

"If the Americans withdraw at this time, there will be problems, because the Iraqi forces are not ready to take on the responsibility," Khalid Ghafori, 53, a retired policeman, told AFP as he jangled a string of green prayer beads.

"They (the Iraqi security forces) have made a lot of unfair arrests because they are prejudiced against the people here," Ghafori said, giving voice to a distrust shared by many Sunnis.

The turmoil that engulfed Adhamiyah only began to be brought under control after the US military's "surge" in February 2007.

With sectarian conflict raging across the Iraqi capital in which tens of thousands died, the Sunni neighbourhood was the first Baghdad district to be pulled back from the brink.

Similar concerns are expressed by Ghafori's friends, who spend nearly all their waking hours drinking tea at a chai stall near Al-Abbasi market where the buildings still carry the bullet-marks and rocket damage of past street battles.

"The Iraqi army is not well enough organised or disciplined and, if the Americans leave, there will be a security vacuum," said Majid Shab Ahmed, 49, reluctantly admitting he served as an intelligence officer under Saddam's regime.

"We were united under the martyr Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, we are now divided," he added, calling for steps to re-integrate loyalists of Saddam's Baath party into Iraqi politics.

Across town in the sprawling Shiite district of Sadr City, sentiment towards the US troops has moved in the opposite direction. In 2003, when they overthrew Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime, the troops were welcomed by residents but now there is delight that they are finally leaving.

The mood is based more on nationalist pride than any belief the Iraqi army is up to the job, though.

"June 30 should be a joyous day, but will our army behave properly?" asked Najam Ali, 43, a food kiosk owner, who accused troops of theft and even kidnappings, after gaining entry to houses on the pretext of search operations.

"We do not like being occupied by a foreigner and hope the Americans go, but we are witnessing abuses every day," he said, referring to Iraqi misconduct.

Sadr City, which was called Saddam City during the dictator's reign, became a stronghold of the feared Mahdi Army militia of radical anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr after Saddam's overthrow.

Repeatedly accused of kidnapping and murdering Sunnis, the militia was finally routed by US-backed Iraqi forces in major military operations between March and May last year in which hundreds of people were killed.

Sadr City, however, is still hit by attacks, the latest of which saw a massive bomb kill at least 62 people on Wednesday. Such unrest has led some to insist the Mahdi Army was better at keeping order than Iraqi soldiers are.

"Under the militia there was no thieving," said Wisam Kahdum, a 21-year-old policeman. "For the majority of people, life got worse when the army came."

After more than six years of occupation, however, and with last month showing civilian casualties at their lowest level since the 2003 invasion, there is some optimism that the worst is over.

"Despite the violation of people's rights by the Iraqi army, I hope that the Americans withdraw," said Ahmed Naeem, 30, who has been unemployed since being wounded by shrapnel from a rocket fired by a US helicopter in April 2008.

"We have to be optimistic. We have no alternative," he added.

Key dates in the Iraqi conflict from the US-led invasion of March 2003:

2003

March 20: US-led forces bomb and then invade Iraq, where they allege that president Saddam Hussein is building weapons of mass destruction.

April 9: US forces move into the heart of Baghdad, where they topple a large statue of Saddam signalling the downfall of the regime.

May 1: US President George W. Bush announces the end of major combat operations using a "Mission Accomplished" banner, but the violence continues.

September 3: The first post-Saddam cabinet is sworn in.

October 2: US acknowledges that no weapons of mass destruction were found.

October 16: UN Resolution 1511 legitimises the US-led occupation.

December 13: Saddam captured.

2004

April-August: Clashes between coalition forces and supporters of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

April 28: Publication of photographs of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by American troops in Abu Ghraib prison.

June 28: The US-led administration says it has handed over power to Iraqis.

2005

January 30: Iraqis go to the polls in the first multi-party vote in 50 years despite a spate of deadly attacks, but disenchanted Sunni Arabs largely boycott the vote.

April 6: Jalal Talabani chosen to be president, the first Kurd to hold the office in Iraq's modern history.

October 15: Iraqis vote in force on a draft constitution.

December 15: The conservative Shiite United Iraqi Alliance wins most seats in the parliamentary election for the first permanent post-Saddam government.

2006

February 22: Shiite shrine at Samarra, north of Baghdad, blown up; 450 people die in surge of sectarian violence.

April 22: Talabani re-elected president. Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, forms a government in May.

June 7: Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, killed in a US air strike.

July: The United States hands over to Iraqi security control of the first of the country's 18 provinces.

October 11: A law establishing federal provinces is passed.

November 5: Saddam condemned to death for the execution of 148 Shiites in the 1980s.

December 30: Saddam hanged.

2007

January 10: Bush announces the dispatch of 30,000 more American troops in a so-called "surge" strategy.

February 14: Start of security plan for Baghdad.

August 14: More than 400 people killed by suicide truck bombs targeting the ancient Yazidi religious sect in two Kurdish villages in northern Iraq.

2008

March 23: Death toll of US troops reaches 4,000 since May 2003.

September 1: The US military transfers control of western province of Anbar to Iraqi forces, the first Sunni-majority province to be handed over.

August 28: Sadr announces a halt to operations by the Mahdi Army.

November 27: Parliament ratifies an Iraq-US security agreement which gives American troops a legal basis to stay in Iraq and sets an end-2011 deadline for their departure.

2009

January 1: The US formally transfers control of Baghdad's high-security Green Zone and other key installations to Iraqis.

January 20: Incoming President Barack Obama says the United States will "begin to responsibly leave Iraq".

February 27: Obama announces that all US combat operations in Iraq will end by August 31, 2010, and that he intends to fully withdraw all American troops by the end of 2011.

March 8: US says 12,000 more US troops to leave by end-September.

April 30: British forces end Iraq combat operations at Basra ceremony.

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