Many people in the poor Sunni Adamiyeh neighbourhood find the arrest of Saddam Hussein unbearable. A day after the news broke, at least a thousand protesters shout their rage.

Many refused to believe he had been arrested.

"Saddam Hussein would not have gone down without a fight," says a very angry man at the demonstration. "The Americans are making it up."

Many around him nod their assent. "He is still our president," says another man who does not give his name.

Many Iraqis have celebrated news of the arrest firing volleys of gunshots into the air. A day later demonstrators in Adamiyeh try to silence them with their own firing.

Several carry arms. Kalashnikov assault rifles, grenades and knives flash in the crowd. The most vocal demonstrators have covered their faces with Arab headscarves in the style of the Fedayeen fighters said to be responsible for many attacks on U.S. troops and their allies in Iraq.

"All Adamiyeh belongs to the Fedayeen Saddam now," shouts one of the masked men. The Fedayeen were specially trained paramilitary troops of the old regime.

People in Adamiyeh explain their allegiance to the deposed dictator mostly in terms of religion.

"Saddam Hussein was a defender or the Muslims," says Uday, a 26-year old student. "He was the only one who hit Israel," somebody else chips in.

"With or without Saddam Hussein, our fight will continue," says a man who claims to represent a resistance group from the town of Ramadi in the west of Iraq, that has been a focus for the attacks on U.S. soldiers.

Their struggle is not in support of the former leader but against the U.S. occupation, he says.

On the quiet and posh Arasat shopping street a few kilometres from the demonstration, Saad Jawad, a political scientist at the University of Baghdad is not surprised by such statements.

"When Uday and Qusay (Saddam Hussein's sons) were killed, I said that resistance would only increase, and I'm saying the same now," he says.

"Many respectable people oppose the occupation but they did not want to be identified with Saddam Hussein," says Jawad. "Now that he has been arrested, they can join the resistance."

He thinks it was wrong of U.S. officials to show their joy over the arrest of the former leader. "Many people just don't like it when the Americans are happy after all they have done here. It was the same when Uday and Qusay got killed."

But Jawad does not think that the demonstrators in Adamiyeh are driven by nationalistic motives. "They are mainly upset at what they regard, incorrectly, as the Shias taking over the country with the assistance of the Americans, which harms them, the Sunnis."

In the poor and sprawling Shia neighbourhood of Baghdad that used to be called Saddam City, and was renamed Sadr City after a venerated Shia cleric, attitudes contrast sharply with those in Adamiyeh.

"Everybody here is very happy, we start a new life," says Satar Razak, a 24- year old owner of a vegetable and fruit stand in Sadr City's main street. "When people heard the news they all came to buy fruits and candies to hand out."

The Shias, like the Kurds in the north, suffered most under Saddam Hussein's rule.

Razak says his cousin was arrested by the regime in 1991 after the Shia uprising that broke out at the end of the first Gulf War. The uprising in Saddam City was put down brutally.

"They took him away and we never heard from him again," says Razak. "We are sure he's dead, executed."

Most people in the market share his joy over the arrest of Saddam Hussein. A few grumble about the sorry state of affairs since the U.S. invasion, about interruptions in power supply, about petrol shortage and about the lack of security.

In nearby Abrar mosque Sheikh Ali Mahmoud plays down the criticism of the U.S. "Here in Sadr City our power supply was interrupted constantly as well under Saddam."

The population of Sadr City heaved a sigh of relief after the arrest, the Sheikh says. "Even after the Americans had liberated Baghdad, people were still afraid of Saddam Hussein."

Sheikh Ali Mahmoud is a Sunni Kurd who fled persecution by Saddam Hussein's regime in the north. His whole village there was destroyed by the government in 1977, he says.

"That is not a problem, that I'm a Sunni Kurd in this Shia neighbourhood," he says. "We were not united because of Saddam. He divided us with his violence."

At the prayers next Friday he does not plan to talk about the capture of the former leader. "The government always forced us to praise Saddam in our prayers," he says. "I don't want to mention him ever again in this mosque."