Basra back to normal, Green Zone under fire

Residents buried their dead and swept rubble from the streets after quiet returned to the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Monday, but clashes continued in Baghdad despite a truce to end a week of violence.

Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called his fighters off the streets on Sunday, nearly a week after a crackdown on them sparked fighting that spread through the south and the capital.

Life slowly returned to normal in Basra where Sadr's masked Mahdi Army militia fighters were no longer to be seen openly brandishing weapons in the street as they had for days.

"We have control of the towns around Basra and also inside the city. There are no clashes anywhere in Basra. Now we are dismantling roadside bombs," said Major-General Mohammed Jawan Huweidi, commander of the Iraqi Army's 14th division.

In Baghdad, where a three-day curfew was mostly lifted, the truce seemed tenuous at best. Explosions struck the "Green Zone" government and diplomatic compound in what police said was a volley of six mortar bombs. Sirens wailed and a recorded voice ordered people to take cover.

U.S. military spokesman Major Mark Cheadle said there were clashes in several Baghdad neighborhoods early on Monday.

U.S. forces called in at least three helicopter strikes in Baghdad late on Sunday after Sadr's ceasefire, including one in which they said they killed 25 fighters who attacked a convoy struck by a roadside bomb. U.S. helicopter strikes, once rare in the capital, became common over the past week.

Sadr City, a sprawling slum of about 2 million people that is Sadr's main stronghold and which has witnessed some of the worst fighting in the past week, remained sealed off by U.S. and Iraqi troops, but appeared quiet.

Negotiations

The week saw government troops have little military success driving fighters from the streets in their biggest test yet.

Sadr announced the surprise ceasefire after talks behind the scenes with parties in Maliki's government. As part of the deal, Sadr's aides say, authorities are to end roundups of his followers and implement an amnesty to free prisoners.

The government still says it wants militants to hand over heavy and medium weapons. But Sadr's aides say his followers have no heavy weapons and will keep their light arms to defend themselves against the U.S. "occupation".

Maliki launched the crackdown last Tuesday in Basra, which controls Iraq's only sea port and 80 percent of its oil revenues.

The government has long worried about rival militia fighting for control of Basra and portrayed the crackdown as an attempt to assert state authority in a lawless city.

But the militia is also tied to political parties, and Sadr's followers saw the crackdown as an attempt to subdue them ahead of provincial elections due by October.

The Interior Ministry said 210 people had been killed and 600 wounded in Basra during the week. In Sadr City, 109 dead bodies and 634 wounded were brought to just two hospitals, said Ali Bustan, head of the health directorate for eastern Baghdad.

Scores more were killed in other parts of the capital and in other southern towns.