Raids likely to end cease-fire, aid says

BAGHDAD (AP) — Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr could end a ban on his militia’s activities because of rising anger over U.S. and Iraqi raids against his followers, an aide said Friday amid concerns about rising violence and clashes between rival factions in the mainly Shiite south.

Al-Sadr’s call for a six-month cease-fire has been credited with a sharp drop in the number of bullet-riddled bodies that turn up on the streets of Iraq and are believed to be victims of Shiite death squads.

Baghdad police found three people slain execution-style and bearing signs of torture Friday, compared with the dozens often found on a typical day before al-Sadr’s declaration. The morgue in the southern city of Kut received two bodies, including one pulled from the Tigris River.

Five Iraqis were killed in attacks nationwide, including a woman who was caught up in a suicide attack north of Baghdad.

The U.S. military reported that an American soldier was killed and four were wounded in southern Baghdad Thursday when their unit was hit with an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP. The United States claims Iran supplies Shiite militants with the weapon, which fires an armor-piercing, fist-sized copper slug.

The military said U.S. paratroopers conducting combat Friday in the southern Shiite city of Hillah found a cache of weapons including 27 Iranian-made 107 mm rockets and two launch systems, each capable of firing 20 rockets at once.