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Moqtada al-Sadr's militia begins to turn in weapons

Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia began slowly turning in weapons yesterday under a deal with the Iraqi government aimed at bringing a halt to months of deadly fighting in a Baghdad slum.

But anti-US attacks continued, with two US soldiers killed in a rocket attack in Baghdad and two Iraqis killed in a car bomb attack on a US military convoy in the northern city of Mosul.

Armed men claiming to belong to the militant group of Iraq's most wanted man Abu Musab al-Zarqawi appeared in a video threatening to behead a Turkish hostage.

In the teeming Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, machine guns, mortar launchers and ammunition were trickling in to police stations under the five-day test agreement that could clear the road for a lasting truce in one of the major flashpoints of the Iraq insurgency.

A deal would shore up one flank for the US and Iraqi forces in the run-up to national polls planned for January, allowing them to concentrate on Fallujah, the epicenter of the Sunni Muslim insurgency, and other trouble spots around central Iraq.

In Sadr City, police, many of them Sadr supporters, told reporters they thought the militiamen mistrusted the Iraqi government and the US military and feared the other side might take advantage of the truce to crush their movement.

Under the terms of the deal, described as a loose verbal pact, there is a five-day test period for the weapons surrender after which the Iraqi army will move in and patrol Sadr City, where the Shiite militia has ruled by the gun for months, while the government has offered to free some detained Sadr supporters.

Intermediaries handed in weapons at one of three police stations serving as drop-off centers which had been cordoned off by police and Iraqi national guard. US army troops were also present at the sites.

At one station in the heart of the teeming district, about a dozen machine guns, 12 mortar rounds, 38 mortar launchers and a sniper rifle were handed in.

Sadr City, home to 2.5 million people, has been devastated by six months of fighting between the US army and Sadr's militia. Intense air strikes and street skirmishes are believed to have sharply reduced the militia's ranks from more than 10,000 followers to less than 2,000 since April, the US military says.

The US battalion commander for Sadr City, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Volesky, warned that his men reserved the right to carry out raids and arrests despite the five-day test period for Sadr's men to relinquish heavy and medium weapons.

"There has been no ceasefire agreement. The freedom of our movement has not been limited in any way. If we get the intel [intelligence] to support doing a search or raid on a target we have that flexibility to do it," he said.

Iraqi national security advisor Kassem Daoud hailed the agreement Sunday and said the government had more than US$500 million to rebuild Sadr City, with US$150 million coming from the US.
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