(Original copy) FROM a viewpoint in one of the executive boxes in the Olympic football stadium in Al Amarah, the town appears to sprawl out in all directions, low concrete buildings criss-crossed by power lines, orange street lights beginning to shine through the dusk. There are still plenty of cars on the streets of the southern Iraqi town and people can be seen walking, or chatting, or sitting in groups on the kerbsides. From the direction of one of the many blocks of flats strung out along the main highways comes the sound of an Arabic radio station, competing with the flat notes of a call to prayer. Then a gunshot, and another and another. The slow, chugging sound of an AK47 rifle, one of hundreds of thousands of such weapons in a country where people pride themselves on their right to own a weapon. There is firing every night from the flats around the stadium. Sometimes, tracer rounds can be seen arcing slowly into the sky, but not tonight. As the dusk grows deeper, British soldiers are watching the same scenes from the ground through the night sights of a Scimitar light tank parked outside the sweeping concrete bowl of the stadium. Everything in the viewfinder is tinged with green. A flick of a switch transforms the view, picking out anything which generates heat. Hot water tanks glow brightly, people walking are darker, but still stand out clearly from the buildings. The muzzle flash of an AK47 would show up as brilliant white. The Kings Own Scottish Borderers have taken over stadium as a base for operations in this part of the town and in the executive box that he has turned into his sleeping quarters, Major Stuart Cattermull is preparing a little surprise for the gunmen. A decision has been taken that they cannot allow the nightly gunfire which has been directed towards the stadium to continue. Tonight, Major Cattermull and the men of C company are going to take a stroll through one of the more troublesome neighbourhoods to let the people living there know that they are not prepared to just sit back and be used for target practice. "We keep getting shot at every night so we are going out to put on a show of force. We want to close them down," he says. The regiment has only been in Iraq for a couple of weeks and no-one has been injured yet. Some of the shooting is just celebratory fire, traditional at weddings or other social gatherings. Some of it is simply the result of high spirits in a culture where guns are always to hand. But the troops suspect that some of it is aimed at them. A couple of days ago shots were heard as a patrol made its way out of the stadium, heading north to examine a weapons find. The splash marks kicked up by the bullets as they hit the dusty ground were seen to follow the vehicles. "I don't know whether it is people just taking pot shots or people who don't want us here - and we know there are people who don't want us here because of what happened in Majar," says the major, referring to the incident which left six military policemen dead and a number of soldiers from the Parachute regiment injured. The plan is to hit the streets in Saxon armoured personnel carriers and Landrovers, using soldiers on foot to sweep through the network of flats and across the stretches of wasteland which separate the buildings, and taking along members of the local militia - known as the Fawj - who have been hired to supplement the policing of the town. Tomorrow tonight's sweep will be followed up by a meeting with the mullahs and the local civic leaders, hoping that having seen what can be done, they will persuade those who are responsible for the shooting to leave the stadium and the troops alone. "The task tonight is to show our presence and to inderdict anyone showing hostile intent with a weapons, or moving weapons," the major says, consulting his briefing notes. "It is a delicate balance but we don't think it will put people's backs up. Day to day patrols have been well received. And we have already asked them to stop shooting at us." Packed into the back of one of the open Landrovers, five soldiers are getting ready to move out. For some of them it is their first night patrol. They are excited, a little edgy. They cock their weapons, trying to manoeuvre in the confined space to cover both sides of the road and the rear of the vehicle as it sets off towards the area of the town that has been earmarked for special attention tonight. The man in the front seat covers the road ahead. They drive through the roadblock set up on the road into the stadium and out onto the streets. People walking along the side of the road watch the convoy pass, but no-one seems unduly bothered by the presence of so many troops pointing weapons in their general direction. It is 9.45pm and the streets are quiet, little traffic moving at this time of the evening. A few men - no women - are strolling along, while children sit in clusters by the roadside or kick a football around on a patch of wasteland lit by nearby streetlamps. There is the sound of a siren, but it is fitted to a bicycle, to which the rider has also added a flashing red light. The soldiers eye him with amusement as they drive past. Now the vehicles have stopped and the soldiers are jumping out, fanning out across the road and moving towards the first building on the right, moving in a line along the wall, the first man crouched down, peeping round the corner. He stands up and moves around the corner, and the others follow into the darkness beyond. Back on the road, the gunners on the roofs of the Saxons scan the surrounding area for signs of trouble as the vehicles trundle slowly forwards. Between them are the Landrovers, now empty apart from their drivers, rifles by their sides. A few soldiers walk alongside the vehicles, watching the road ahead and to the rear. The road is not wide, and the few cars still on the streets struggle to squeeze past, the drivers cautious in the face of the weapons which are raised in their direction as they edge by. Then the sound of gunfire again, quite close, coming from the direction of a block of flats on the left hand side of the road ahead. The guns swivel in that direction, but there is no more firing. The area is a mixture of detached houses behind iron gates and walls a little over head height, and three storey blocks of flats, quite modern, built of concrete, a poor district but no worse than many such blocks in British towns and cities. There are patches of open ground littered with rubbish and stagnant pools of water, a smell of sulphur and ammonia coming from the sewers. Every now and then a shop is still doing business, single open-fronted rooms selling an assortment of household goods, cigarettes, cans of Pepsi and bottles of water. People have come out from their houses to watch the column pass by, chatting and smoking. Children go up to the soldiers, asking them their names, telling them theirs. Some of the older youths call out "Good evening mister" as the soldiers walk past. The soldiers acknoweldge the greeting, and from behind them there is the sound of laughter. One little girl, no more than four, in a neat dark blue dress, blows a kiss at one of the soldiers. Behind the houses, the soldiers who spilled out of the Landrovers are zig-zagging their way across the open land, unseen from the road. A young man comes forward from one of the groups of people who have gathered outside their houses to watch. His name is Hayder Chasab Aseed and he is a pharmacy student in his final year of college. He does not approve of the shooting from the people in the flats across the road. He says he is pleased that the British are here. "We need security to be available," he says. "Thieves are trying to steal things. People are afraid of the shooting. The people shooting are uneducated people. They were in prison but Saddam let them out. They are the ones who are shooting. It is good the soldiers are here." As he talks, there is the sound of more gunfire, closer this time, coming from the same direction as before. The column stops, and soldiers are talking into their radio headsets. Someone has spotted a couple of vehicles driving away. They decide to stop a few cars to check who is inside. It is the fawj men who do the talking, while the soldiers stand nearby. The checks go on for a few minutes, but the fawj are dismissive of the gunfire. The shooting is coming from a wedding party, one says. They want to abandon the checkpoint. The column moves off again, heading towards the flats from where the sound of shooting was heard. Inside the flats, people are looking out of their windows or peering over the parapets around the roofs. The soldiers are more cautious now, wary about the possible danger, keeping the Saxon between them and the flats, using their rifle sights to check out the area. Some have night sights which flip down from their helmets and enable them to see into the darkness which has now descended completely. It is 10.45pm but there are still street stalls open and doing good business in an open area at the heart of the flats complex. Sometimes the militia men stop to greet friends who they spot at the side of the road, kissing them on the cheek, laughing and joking. They are past the flats now, and the smell of sewage and rubbish is receeding. They roll up to a checkpoint to wait for the soldiers on foot to complete their sweep. A corporal fusses over the younger soldiers, making sure they have all the ground covered, checking out the darkness through his night sight. The gunner standing in the turret of one of the Saxons is told to keep a lower profile, and dutifully wriggles back down through his hatch until only his head is showing through the gap. The night air is cooler but as they head back into the stadium the temperature has dropped in more ways than one. There has been no gunfire for at least an hour and Major Catermull seems pleased with the night's work. "I think we achieved our aim. People seemed pleased to see us," he says. The foot soldiers are coming in now, chattering to each other about the experience. The nervousness has gone. Colour Sergeant Mick McCaig sums up the mood: "The boys were a bit apprehensive at first about the gunfire but with their presence on the streets there was zilch. I think we set the jungle drums beating tonight," he says.