Baghdadis revel in first big football final in years

For two hours on a clear, hot summer evening, Baghdadis forgot the bloodshed and hatred that has divided their city and shared their delight for Iraq's national passion -- football.

For the first time since the US-led invasion of 2003, nearly 50,000 people crowded the national football stadium on Sunday to watch the league championship decider between hometown favourites Iraq Zawra and Arbil, from the northern Kurdish region.

Fans chanted, banged tambourines and blew trumpets amid a sea of white flags -- Zawra's colours.

Even Arbil's extra time winner failed to dent the home fans' mood.

"I've come to see Iraqis feel happy. It's wonderful to see people smile," said Latif Jabbour, a retired 58-year-old, who drove 270 kilometres (170 miles) to see the game.

Car bombs, suicide bombings and street battles have torn Baghdad apart since the invasion, the violence forcing organisers to cancel the football league altogether in 2004.

In 2005 as sectarian violence soared, the Iraqi football federation created four divisions of seven teams -- north, south, centre and west -- reflecting the divide between Iraq's Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni communities to prevent away supporters having to travel into hostile territory.

Only in the semi-finals and final that decide the overall league champion among the four divisional winners do teams from different parts of the country meet and after a very poor attendance at the 2005 final in the capital, the last two were played in the relative safety of the Kurdish north.

"We've had only misery but we need to be happy. This is the first time that I forget everything. Can you distinguish a Shiite from a Sunni? No, they are all Iraqis," said Mohammed Kazem, an 18-year-old deliveryman.

A year ago, a gathering of this size in central Baghdad would have been unthinkable. The capital's 89 districts and six million residents were hunkered down behind blast walls that divided their neighbourhoods along sectarian fault lines. Travel was highly dangerous.

Bombings still occur on a near-daily basis around Iraq, but nationwide violence has dipped to its lowest level in four years, raising hopes that the worst is over.

"After the savagery and sectarian violence, today I see... Iraqis," said policeman Kazem Abbas, his baton loosely held.

Here there was no talk of the complex issues that are dividing Iraq -- Sunni versus Shiite or Kurd versus Arab.

"This is the first I've come to the capital and I see other Iraqis like me," said an ecstatic Hussein Kassem, 22, an Arbil resident who struggled to express himself in Arabic, rather than his native Kurdish.

Zawra striker Abdul Salam Aboud told the fans: "It gives me immense pleasure to play before this crowd."

Despite the joy of the event, a mortar round hit near the stadium at half-time, causing momentary panic on the street in a grim reminder of the danger that Baghdadis continue to face daily.