Despite occasional outbursts of small-arms fire and the explosions from improvised explosive devices planted by Shiite militiamen, doctors from the 4th Brigade, 11th Iraqi Army on Wednesday held a three-hour Medical Civil Action Program in the Tharwa district of southern Sadr City, treating 318 men, women and children who came in off the street for the clinic, which was announced by loudspeakers just an hour before it began.

U.S. troops provided security for the event, standing watch, patrolling nearby streets and security screening patients for weapons or bombs as they entered an abandoned school building where the clinic was held.

At nearby Joint Security Station Sadr City, U.S. engineers are continuing work on a new civil military operations center, where district residents can meet with Iraqi officials over issues such as sanitation, reconstruction and electrical power.

Meanwhile, throughout the district U.S. and Iraq troops are visiting homes and surveying residents while also sussing out Mehdi Army gunmen and their weapons caches.

"I think the people here are scared of JAM (Jaish al-Mehdi, the Arabic-language name for the Mehdi Army) and the special groups and have had enough of this fighting," said Capt. Ryan Williams, of Comanche Troop, 1st Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, attached to the 3rd Brigade. "Since it started we've gotten a steady stream of tips on weapons caches and the hideouts -- and they've proved accurate."

Sadr City, with a population of about 2.5 million, is located in the northeast corner of Baghdad and is the stronghold of anti-American cleric Moqtada Sadr and his militia.

A cease-fire between the Mehdi Army and U.S. and Iraqi forces last August helped bring the downturn in violence in Iraq's capital. That cease-fire ended when Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki -- a political rival of Sadr -- sent troops into the southern city of Basra last month to stamp out violence by various Shiite militias, including rogue Mehdi Army cells, and subsequently called for the dismantling of the militia.

On March 25, 107mm and 120mm rockets rained down for days on Baghdad's International Zone, where government offices are located, from southern Sadr City. Militia gunmen also attacked and in many cases overran IA posts in the district as Iraqis police, and in some cases soldiers, bolted their posts. U.S. officials said in many cases, the militia had threatened the families of the police and troops who come from the Baghdad area.

"It was kinda fun spotting them (snipers) and shooting at them the other night until I realized we were practically surrounded," a soldier with Comanche Company said from the roof of a house taken over near Tharwa and made into an operations post. "Then it got heavy."

Comanche was one of a number of units "thunder rushed" into the district to re-establish abandoned IA checkpoints and also stop the rocketing. They were later joined by new IA units -- not from the Baghdad area -- who joined in the fight.

The outpost still receives occasional sniper fire, but the intensity of late last month and earlier this month has waned. Earlier this week an Iraqi soldier firing a machine gun took out two snipers up the road who were targeting them and U.S. forces. But one other still remains, making patrols a hazardous venture.

"I feel safer now with the army back," Hassan Abed al-Karim told soldiers who stopped by his home in the Tharwa district. "My children go to school to the south so they are safe, but I don't allow them to play on the street when home."

The Iraqi lives close to the main road separating northern from southern Sadr City. He said militia would come into his neighborhood and fire rockets from open fields in the area.

Col. John Hort, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team responsible for the area, attributes much of the earlier violence to criminal elements and Iranian-influenced special groups within the Mehdi Army.

"I think it's mainly the special groups with the Iranian influence that are promoting the current state of violence," he said. "I can't speak for what he (Sadr) does, but I will say the mainstream JAM is fighting us in this fight right now.

"We are not just dealing with rogue elements, we are dealing with mainstream JAM in this current fight we are in. And what we've seen is that these JAM members are influenced by these special groups and become sympathetic to the cause -- fight the coalition forces to the last man or kick the ISF (Iraqi Security Forces) out of Sadr City."

Hort said that in the latest round of fighting, the gunmen used battle tactics "you don't just pick up on the Internet."

"This was an organized effort. This wasn't just a bunch of guys who one day decided to take pot shoots at the Iraqi Army," he said.

It's estimated U.S. troops in southern Sadr City "engaged, killed or wounded probably over 400" gunmen, Hort said.

With security increasing daily in southern Sadr City, gunmen have mainly crossed back into northern Sadr City across a main road known as Route Gold (al-Quds Street) where U.S. forces are erecting a 10-foot concrete barrier to control access into and out of southern neighborhoods.

The barrier, which when finished will stretch 3 miles, has come under fire from the Maliki government as well as from Sadr, but U.S. military officials say the controlled access it will afford is essential to security.

"Getting this wall in is our biggest effort right now," Hort said. "We're putting in a wall that will degrade the enemy's ability to conduct operations south of Route Gold. That allows us to conduct significant reconstruction in Jamilla (neighborhood) and Tharwa down into Old Adamiya.

"It is a fight to put that wall in every night. It's a minefield down that road. There have been 115 IEDs along it in the last three weeks."

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