It's been relatively quiet as far as I could tell while the curfew was on. That got lifted this evening so we might start seeing things get nasty. I wandered outside a few minutes ago and heard heavy machine gun fire from across the Tigris. Also one of our staff lives in a Sunni neighbourhood. We called him yesterday and today to make sure he was ok and he said there's been trouble in his neighbourhood. Bullets whizzing over his roof and the sound of gunfire very close to his house. Today there have been a lot more fighter jets passing over than there usually are and the helicopters have been different. Instead of the usual Black Hawks that take people to the airport or wherever, there have been those sinister looking things with weapons all over them. God knows what's going on out there. The authorities have shut down some Sunni TV stations as well (see Riverbend's entry from yesterday) so it's even harder to find out what's really going on, as opposed to what they want you to see. Aah, good old freedom of speech, Iraqi style.

Nice to see Riverbend is still alive. I thought she'd fallen victim to a Shia death squad as she hadn't posted for a long time.