Berlusconi, a loyal ally of US President George W. Bush, sent almost 3,000 troops to Iraq, where bloodshed and kidnapping have rattled other countries with troops or workers there.
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo told officials to prepare contingency plans to evacuate some 3,000 Filipinos, but said peacekeepers and aid workers would stay for now.
About 20 buses carrying Russian workers headed for the airport in an evacuation organized after the kidnapping and swift release of three Russians and five Ukrainians in Baghdad.
The US military, fighting on two fronts against Sunni rebels and Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, has lost at least 93 troops in combat since March 31 -- four more than the total killed in the three-week war that toppled Saddam.
There have been intense efforts by Shiite clerics to broker a deal between Sadr and the Americans that would spare Najaf a bloodbath.
A negotiator for Sadr said on Wednesday the cleric had offered unconditional talks, but a senior official with the US-led authorities declined comment on any negotiations.
In Baquba, north of Baghdad, two rockets hit houses at dawn, killing a mother and two teenage sons and badly wounding two daughters. It was not clear who had fired the rockets.
The bloody chaos in Iraq has shown how hard Washington is finding the task of stabilizing the country it invaded to destroy Saddam's still unfound weapons of mass destruction.
Bush, seeking re-election in November with opponents accusing him of leading the US into a Vietnam-style quagmire, vowed on Tuesday to stay the course in Iraq and stick to a June 30 handover of power to Iraqis.
The stretched US military has decided to keep more than 20,000 troops in Iraq beyond their year-long tours of duty.
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