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The Sunni Arab men of the district have posted plainclothes spies on the corners to look out for suspicious strangers. They keep their cellphones close at hand, waiting for the ring that will call them to arms. When it comes, the men will pour from the surrounding homes, guns blazing.

Faced with the growth of Shiite militias such as the black-shirted Al Mahdi army and deadly abuses by the Shiite-dominated police forces, Sunnis in mixed-sect neighborhoods and cities throughout Iraq are stashing guns in their mosques and knitting themselves into militias of their own.

"We've made an agreement with the neighbors that if we have another attack, they'll pick up their weapons and fight the invaders," said Fares Mahmoud, deputy preacher of the El Koudiri Mosque here in the middle-class neighborhood of Arasat. "We are depending on the soul of the people to protect us."

[...]

Amid the rising violence, many Iraqis feel they have little choice but to arm themselves and their neighbors.

"In Baghdad, for example, there is a perception that the police are not really there to protect them," said a Western official in the capital who would not speak on the record because of the political sensitivity of the topic. But "it is not an acceptable answer to bend to the presence of a militia to guarantee a particular neighborhood."