US troops patrol Baghdad on foot By Ross Colvin
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops are patrolling the streets in some Baghdad neighborhoods on foot in a new bid to win the trust of Iraqis, an unusual sight for many residents more used to seeing them travel in armored vehicle convoys.
Taking a more personal approach to Iraqis long critical of heavy handed tactics is part of the strategy aimed at reclaiming Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods from insurgents and easing communal strife.
Thousands of U.S. reinforcements have arrived in Baghdad in recent weeks to join a crackdown by U.S. and Iraqi forces on worsening sectarian violence between once-dominant minority Sunnis and majority Shi'ites in the city.
Mindful of the three-year-old Sunni insurgency fighting to expel them from Iraqi soil, U.S. commanders explain to residents that they aim to restore security in support of Iraqi police.
"I want to get this job done so I can go home and live with my family and you can live with your family," Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Peterson, commander of the First Squadron, 14th U.S. Cavalry, told one man through his interpreter in al-Hadar, an area of the notoriously violent southern Dora district.
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