BAGHDAD, Iraq: Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador, said on Monday his country would "respect the wishes" of the Iraqi government after the prime minister ordered a halt to construction of a three-mile 12-foot-high wall separating Sunni-Shia brethren in Baghdad.

Any plan to build "gated communities" to protect Baghdad neighborhoods from attacks was in doubt after Premier Nouri al-Maliki said during a visit to Arab countries that he did not want the wall in Azamiyah to be seen as dividing the capital's sects.

Meanwhile the chief Iraqi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Qassim Al-Moussawi said, "We will continue to construct the security barriers in the Azamiyah neighborhood. This is a technical issue … Setting up barriers is one thing and building barriers is another. These are moveable barriers that can be removed."

But big protests were held in Azamiyah on Monday to oppose what they called "a big prison."

The demonstrators shouted slogans and carried banners saying the concrete barrier would make them prisoners of their own neighborhood and an easier target for terrorists.

Signs read: "Separation wall is a big prison for Azamiyah citizens" and "Azamiyah children want to see Baghdad without walls." No violence was reported.

Dawood al-Azami, deputy director of the Azamiyah city council, said a questionnaire that was handed out in the area on Sunday indicated that 90 percent of the respondents strongly oppose the barrier.