Lurid artificial flowers and tinsel decorated the police cars and balloons and streamers adorned the concrete security checkpoints of South Baghdad yesterday as jubilant Iraqis and security forces prepared to celebrate officially taking control of the city.

Today is the long-awaited deadline for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq’s urban areas, and despite a series of bombings, many Iraqis are in high spirits at what they see as a national triumph.

“We are glad that this is happening, very glad,” Chasb Mayahi, 60, said as he took tea in a café in the West Rashid area of the capital. “We are the citizens of the country, and it is our duty to protect this country.”

Another local person, Hussein al-Issawi, a retired soldier, was critical of the US mission. “The foreign forces humiliated our elders and women. Iraqi people are very dignified and proud of these things. The US military violated our traditions but the Iraqi forces come from among us and understand us.”

Some of the fiercest fighting in the sectarian conflict during 2006-07 took place in southern Baghdad. “This was one of the hot neighbourhoods,” said Colonel Jasim al-Mehdawi, of the National Police, bumping through Saadiya in a Humvee bought secondhand from the US military. Its interior wiring is held together with tape.

“There was lots of killing on this main road,” he said. “There was a very bad situation in these streets; it was semi-impossible to enter. There were terrorists everywhere, militants with their weapons were walking in the streets, and they would kill the police if they saw them. It was al-Qaeda.”

Brigadier-General Faisal Mohsen said that an al-Qaeda training camp used to operate in nearby Radwaniya, adding that “ [Abu Musab] al-Zarkawi [the late leader of al Qaeda in Iraq] used to train terrorists there, teach them to fire AK47s.”

Now, the area has changed for the better, the police and local people say. The patrol passes through neighbourhoods that used to be bitterly sectarian and ruled by extremist Islamist militias, but now a Sunni mosque, a Shia mosque, and — open and obvious at noon — a shop selling alcohol, are testament to security improvements.

On patrol are Sons of Iraq fighters — brigades of local men who were offered amnesty for past misdeeds in 2006 and, as part of the surge led by US forces in 2007, helped to secure key areas of Baghdad and wrest them back from the control of militants.

Now the Sons of Iraq remain, but the Americans have gone. As in Iraq’s other cities, the US forces have gradually scaled back their presence in this area, from three battalions in West Rashid alone to one which also covers another district.

American command posts in the area were closed two months ago. The National Police on patrol here remain confident, despite the detonation of five bombs in the past fortnight, and shortages in funding, which have left them low on essential equipment, such as explosive detectors.

“The forces are ready,” Colonel Ehssen Ibrahim says. “The citizens have faith in the forces.”

Today’s official withdrawal date is part of a gradual process set out in the status of forces agreement between Iraq and the US. The Iraqi forces’ first challenge will be to ensure that the public holiday to mark the event as a “day of national sovereignty” passes off peacefully.

Musicians and poets led celebrations today in Zawra Park, Baghdad. Thousands of Iraqi security forces will march in a parade tomorrow. US troops throughout Iraq are said to have been given orders not to leave their bases except in emergencies for five days beginning from Wednesday.

However, after a rise in violence in the past fortnight that has left more than 200 people dead, officials from both sides have expressed concerns that Iraq’s security forces are not yet ready to control the country.

Bombings have hit Baghdad’s markets and the police confirmed that one market in West Rashid had been attacked several times by militants, most recently when a bomb on a bicycle was planted near by last week.

“Yes, I’m worried,” said Muntaha Hilal, 30, a housewife buying chicken at the market, “but the people doing these things claim they are attacking US forces ... when the US leave they will have no more excuse.”

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