The place is named Hit, or Heet, depending on the chosen transliteration from Arabic to English. And it's a place where the sometimes controversial practice of cutting deals with tribal sheiks has paid measurable dividends, at least for now.

"The situation now, compared to last year, is night and day," said Lt. Col. J.J. Dill, commander of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, at Camp Hit. "There have been just two IED (improvised explosive device) explosions since August. Before then, at least one was found or went off every day along roads.

"The market is open, people are returning to their homes after running for safety, they're opening businesses, and children are playing on the streets.

"That's satisfying. It shows what we're doing is right," he said.

Dill said his sergeant major, George Young, has one key indicator of peace taking hold: piles of large stones.

"Rock piles are good," he said. "Rock piles mean people are building. People don't build homes if they don't feel safe."

Hit was an intermittent but intense shooting gallery following the downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Al-Qaida terrorist and nationalist insurgent groups were entrenched in the city, enforcing their will on its residents and meting out their own brand of bloody, kangaroo justice when not fighting U.S. forces. Leaders of the area's powerful Albu Nibr tribe, which had chosen cooperation with U.S. forces early on in the war -- well before formation of the Anbar "Awakening Council" movement of Sunni Muslim tribes -- first fought al-Qaida-Iraq with a homegrown militia, but later had to turn to U.S. forces for help. That tentative alliance of necessity has grown into a longer-term, deeper one that has helped bring peace to the tribally mixed city of 60,000, which lies between Ramadi and Haditha.

"Two groups (tribes) in Anbar went to the coalition forces," Sheik Hatem Abdal Razzaq, the leader of Albu Nibr tribe, told a reporter. "One was in the west and one in the east of the province. Both were attacked by terrorists and insurgents for it.

"We lost people. We gave blood. But by working with the coalition forces we saw a future �� and we agreed to get together, and we've cleaned up the bad areas like Hit.

"We get respect from the coalition forces and they trust us. We have security," he said through an interpreter while sipping tea in the large, tribal meeting house on his compound outside Hit, in Zuwayyah. "They help us to make Iraq better. They make many projects here, and projects mean jobs, many jobs."

Increased cooperation with U.S. forces didn't sit well with all initially.

"In 2005 all the Iraqi Police quit except for 170 of us, who stayed on the job for seven months without pay and continued to fight al-Qaida and the insurgents," said IP 1st Lt. Majid Aftin, a soldier during the Saddam regime and a member of the Albu Nibr tribe. But in 2006, with violence still swirling, hundreds of Albu Nibr volunteers stepped forward on just one day for the first 150 new police positions approved by the government.

Police in Hit, who have been trained in multinational facilities in Iraq and Jordan, now number well over 500 and are expected to bump 1,000 in coming months -- not only in the city itself but in Dill's area of operation, which is 4,000 square kilometers, most of it desert.

"My assessment is that AQI here is defeated," Dill said. "By that I mean it can't conduct major operations or interfere significantly with our operations or those of the IPs. This allows us to focus more on the governance and reconstruction track."

"Those we do see appear to be trying to re-establish cells."

Dill's units in Hit either share facilities with IPs or are located next them. They often conduct joint patrols, and they share intelligence.

The 1st Battalion's headquarters is located several miles outside of Hit, but several company-sized or smaller outposts are in the city itself. Each day Marines take to the streets by foot and vehicle, showing their presence and interacting with the people on a more personal level. Since September alone about 5,000 patrols have been mounted in the shopping areas, along main roads, in neighborhoods and along the palm groves hugging the river. Seventy percent of the "presence" operations have been on foot.

"Census" patrols are conducted at night. Marines go out with IPs and visit neighborhoods, taking data on residents, assessing their needs and living situations, helping when they can.

The relative peace in Hit, however, doesn't mean potential violence doesn't lurk. A presence patrol recently passed two men on a motorcycle. The men had stopped and pulled to the side of the road as the patrol passed, in keeping with procedures adopted in the city. They looked ordinary enough, acted ordinary enough and did nothing to arouse suspicion so they weren't interfered with. When the Marines turned the corner, they planted a small bomb.

Local residents tipped off the Iraqi Police, who called U.S. troops. The bomb was neutralized before anyone was hurt, and with local cooperation the suspects were found and detained.

Hit has seen the benefits of cooperation, with U.S. forces, with the Iraqi Police and with each other, despite tribal and clan differences. Will it strengthen and deepen still? Inshallah.

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