Fighting south of Baghdad strains 7-month truce

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces battled Shiite gunmen south of Baghdad on Friday, raising tensions among rival factions of the country's majority religious community and straining a seven-month cease-fire proclaimed by the biggest Shiite militia.

Also Friday, an American soldier was killed and four others were wounded in a rocket or mortar attack south of the capital, the military said. At least 3,993 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war five years ago, according to an Associated Press count. The statement did not provide more details about the location; the area has a volatile mix of Sunni and Shiite extremists.

The fighting in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, broke out Thursday night when factions of the Mahdi Army, led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, attacked checkpoints throughout the city, officials and witnesses said.

Two policemen and two gunmen were killed during the clashes in Kut, which ended Friday, according to Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf.

Also Friday, U.S. and Iraqi forces raided neighborhoods of southern Baghdad and Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of the capital, detaining suspected members of the Mahdi Army, Iraqi police said.

Al-Sadr proclaimed a cease-fire last August and extended it indefinitely last month. But the firebrand cleric, who led two uprisings against U.S.-led forces in 2004, has authorized his followers to defend themselves if attacked.

Al-Sadr's supporters have complained that the Shiite-led government has used the cease-fire to accelerate a crackdown against their movement in Baghdad and the Shiite heartland south of the capital.

Iraqi security forces are heavily influenced by a rival Shiite group, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which wields considerable power in the central government and in provincial administrations throughout the south.

Rival Shiite groups have been battling for control of the oil-rich south with an eye toward the eventual withdrawal of U.S.-led forces. Shiites form an estimated 60 percent of Iraq's 27 million people.

A Sadrist member of parliament alleged that the crackdown in Kut and elsewhere in the south was part of a move by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party and the supreme council to prevent al-Sadr's followers from winning control of key southern provinces in provincial elections expected this fall.