All the roads leading to the Old City are blocked off by tanks or Humvees. Residents who walk in the streets where the electric power cables swing loose, raise their hands in the air as they approach the American troops.

Are the locals friendly? "It seems," says SFC Compton, who has joined his colleagues in an abandoned house where they are resting up and where they stock provisions. "They seem nice but really I don't know," he adds cautiously.

But he is wrong. The few residents who have stayed apparently want just one thing: to see the Americans finish off Sadr's militia as quickly as possible.

"The Americans are good with us," says 27-year-old Hassan Mohammad Ibrahim, who has been left alone in his home. "The militia, when they occupied the street, made us suffer. I want them out of here alive or dead."

"They ruined us," said Karim Hussein, a 38-year-old mason, who has dropped by his home to pick up a few possessions before leaving again. "It's time they were done with. Let the Americans attack and have done with them once and for all."