Iraqi authorities have lifted a daytime curfew in Baghdad and surrounding provinces that was imposed after an attack on an important Shia shrine.
The curfew was imposed amid violent reprisals to the raid on the al-Askari shrine in Samarra last Wednesday - at least 130 people have been killed.
Traffic was back to near normal and residents moving freely in the capital on Monday morning.
The shrine attack has sparked fears Iraq is sliding towards civil war.
The daytime curfew had been imposed from 2000 to 1600 in Baghdad and the surrounding provinces of Diyala, Babil and Salahuddine.
The night curfew from 2000 to 0600 will remain in place.
Bustling streets
Despite the strict curfew, which included a 24-hour traffic ban, violence had continued on Saturday and Sunday.
Fifteen people were killed in a mortar assault on a Shia area of Baghdad on Sunday and another 15 across the rest of Iraq, including three US soldiers.
Insurgents again attacked a Shia mosque, this time in the southern city of Basra. Reports say there was some damage but no-one was killed.
The BBC's Jon Brain in Baghdad says that on Monday the city was back to its usual chaos of gridlocked traffic and bustling streets.
He says the government is hoping to capitalise on the lifted curfew by restarting the process towards forming a new coalition government.
There appears to be a real determination among political leaders, at least for now, to present a united front and prevent a slip to civil war, he says.
On Sunday Sunni clerics and one of the main Shia militias agreed to work together to prevent further sectarian bloodshed.
A senior Sunni politician, Salah al-Mutluq, told the BBC that a new security plan had been worked out by Sunni and Shia leaders that could help relieve tensions.
It involved removing Shia-dominated interior ministry forces, including police, from sensitive Sunni areas.
Instead, these districts would be patrolled by the Iraqi army and multinational troops, he said.
(BBC)
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