BAGHDAD, April 25 (Reuters) - Iraq has modified a U.S. military plan to enclose a Sunni enclave in Baghdad with high concrete walls, and is using barbed wire and smaller cement barriers instead, an Iraqi military spokesman said on Wednesday.

The move to alter the controversial project follows an order from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to halt construction of the 5-km (3-mile) wall around Adhamiya, a Sunni Arab area surrounded on three sides by Shi'ite communities.

Residents have complained bitterly that the walls, up to 12 feet (3.5 metres) tall, would isolate them from other communities and sharpen sectarian tensions.

"We have sought other substitutes such as barbed wire, sand walls and small concrete barriers," Brigadier-General Qassim Moussawi, spokesman for a U.S.-backed security crackdown in Baghdad, told Reuters.

"We immediately started implementing the order of the prime minister three days ago."

U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox said on Monday that "local concerns" would be taken into account and that it was up to the Iraqis to make modifications to barriers.

But neither Fox nor U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker at a separate news conference on Monday would say if work would stop.

The U.S. military has said it is erecting tall concrete walls to protect at least five Baghdad neighbourhoods in what are being called "gated communities".

The military has said the aim was to protect certain residential areas from gunmen as part of the security crackdown, which is seen as a final attempt to halt all-out civil war between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.

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