IRAQ Truce between militia fighters, U.S. troops holds

Four foreign contractors were killed in an attack by insurgents.
WASHINGTON POST
BAGHDAD -- Shiite Muslim militia fighters and U.S. troops observed a nervous truce in the Najaf area Saturday, but a pair of attacks on civilian contractors took five lives, and a roadside bomb killed two U.S. soldiers and injured two in clashes in and around Baghdad's main Shiite stronghold.
Two heavy four-wheel-drive vehicles came under attack on the road to Baghdad International Airport. U.S. military officials said four foreign security contractors inside, two Americans and two Poles, were killed in the assault, carried out by several carloads of insurgents who pulled up close and fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles.
A group headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian Al-Qaida follower, took responsibility, saying the two cars were carrying CIA operatives.
Another civilian contract worker was killed by an explosive that went off beside the highway as a supply convoy passed near Haditha in the desert 175 miles southwest of Baghdad, U.S. authorities announced. A U.S. soldier was also injured in the blast, they said.
Violence in Sadr City
The resurgence of violence in Sadr City, a slum of at least 3 million inhabitants in eastern Baghdad, suggested the conflict between U.S. forces and fighters loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, a militant Shiite cleric, might be shifting back to the capital after two months of confrontation 90 miles to the south in Najaf and the neighboring city of Kufa.
Many members of al-Sadr's militia, the Mehdi Army, have returned with their weapons from Najaf to their homes in Sadr City in recent days, residents said.
A dull boom shook Baghdad at midmorning when the homemade explosive went off, leaving several U.S. military and Iraqi civilian vehicles in flames.
As a fire engine sought to douse the fires, U.S. soldiers swiftly closed off a heavily traveled avenue with Bradley Fighting Vehicles and humvees, causing a traffic jam that forced Baghdad drivers to cut through vacant lots in search of unclogged side streets.
Hassan Adhari, who runs al-Sadr's headquarters in Sadr City, said the immediate cause of recent fighting around the slum was an attempt by U.S. forces to set up a base in a police station down the street from Sadr's office.
U.S. armored personnel carriers took up positions outside the station two days ago, he said, and U.S. soldiers on Saturday brought in bulldozers and concrete barriers to reinforce their position.
"We won't stand for it," Adhari said. "This is going to result in many clashes between us."
In addition, U.S. soldiers have been making arrests in the Sadr City homes of Shiite militiamen suspected of attacking occupation troops, he complained, and returning automatic rifle fire from residents with heavy machine guns and tank cannons that carve a wide swath of destruction in the neighborhood's flimsy buildings.
Opposing occupation
More broadly, the al-Mahdi Army has resolved to oppose the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and prevent U.S. forces from carrying out their declared objective of arresting al-Sadr and turning him over to Iraqi courts on charges he conspired in the murder of a rival cleric, Abdul-Majid Khoie, in the spring of last year.
Al-Sadr, a young cleric whose father was a revered champion of Iraq's Shiite underclass, has been spending recent weeks in Kufa, where he occasionally leads Friday prayers, and the attempt to take him into custody appears to be on hold.
Daniel Senor, spokesman for the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority, said that despite the easing of tension in Najaf and Kufa, the U.S. military continues to regard al-Sadr's militia as an outlaw force that must be disbanded and disarmed.
That stand seemed to promise rough days ahead in Sadr City, where Sadr followers are well-armed.
"Muqtada fighters present in other parts of Iraq and other cities will continue to be regarded as hostile elements if they bear arms," Senor said at a briefing.