BAGHDAD (AP) -- For decades, the Imams bridge spanning the Tigris river linked two ancient Baghdad neighborhoods — one Sunni, the other Shiite — and illustrated the city's tradition of sectarian tolerance, as residents from both sides harmoniously intermingled.

But the Imams was sealed and barricaded after nearly 1,000 Shiites fleeing what they thought was a Sunni suicide bomber died in a stampede on the bridge in 2005. It has remained closed through the past two years of rampant sectarian violence across the capital.
Iraqi authorities now want to reopen the four-lane, 900-foot bridge. For most residents, however, the wounds are too fresh and the fears too real to risk opening a passageway between the two communities. They are fighting the plan.
As violence lessens across the capital — the American military says all attacks in Baghdad have dropped 81 percent since June — the problem of the Imams bridge offers a glimpse at one of the biggest challenges ahead: how to begin normalizing security measures during what Iraqis hope is a transition to a less bloody future, part of the government's effort to achieve national reconciliation.
On either side of the Imams bridge is the Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiya and the Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah.
The bridge, built in 1957, was named after two men who lived on each bank of the Tigris in the eighth century. Both Abu Hanifa and Mousa al-Kazim were imams, a term Muslims use when referring to the most learned of men.
The shrine to Imam Abu Hanifa, one of the greatest masters of Sunni jurisprudence, is located in Azamiyah, a district so named because Abu Hanifa is also called the Imam al-Aazam, or ""the most glorious imam.""
Across the river in Kazamiya lies the shrine of Imam Mousa al-Kazim, one of the holiest men of Shiism.
Some residents of Azamiyah and Kazimiyah also are bound by tribal links, and it was not uncommon until a few years back for the Sunnis of Azamiyah to visit the sprawling shrine of Imam Kazim across the river.
Ironically, Azamiyah is located in the Shiite-dominated eastern bank of the Tigris known as Rusafah, while Kazimiyah is in Karkh, the mainly Sunni part of Baghdad on the river's west bank.
Brig. Qassim al-Moussawi, a senior Iraqi military spokesman, said recently that the bridge should reopen. U.S. commanders have said checkpoints could be set up for pedestrians to use the bridge if the security situation remains stable.
But residents of Kazimiyah and Azamiyah fear a renewal of car bombings and mortar attacks in the two neighborhoods if the bridge reopens. In 2007 alone, according to an Associated Press count, at least 81 people were reported killed in Azamiyah and at least 54 were killed in Kazimiyah.
Al-Moussawi did not give a date for the bridge's reopening, but his statement last week was enough to raise alarm. Sunni leaders in Azamiyah have met twice to condemn the measure. Shiite leaders have set out security conditions for reopening the bridge that are so stringent, it would likely remain closed for years.
The mistrust between the communities on either side of the Imams bridge was ignited by the deadly stampede, Iraq's biggest tragedy since the war began.
On Aug. 31, 2005, 953 people were said to have died in a stampede on the bridge during a religious Shiite procession. Rumors swept through the crowd that a suicide bomber was about to strike, and pilgrims were crushed in the ensuing chaos.