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Shiite outrage could force al-Sadr's hand

Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr could end a ban on his militia's activities because of rising anger over US and Iraqi raids against his followers, an aide said amid concerns about rising violence and clashes between rival factions in the mainly Shiite south.

Al-Sadr's call in August for a six-month ceasefire 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 on 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.

Another five Iraqis were killed in attacks nationwide, including a woman who was caught up in a suicide attack north of Baghdad while she was walking to the market.

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

The US welcomed al-Sadr's ceasefire declaration but has continued to target what it says are Iranian-backed breakaway factions of his Mehdi Army militia and appears to have escalated the campaign in recent weeks.

The military said US paratroopers conducting combat operations on Friday in the southern Shiite city of Hillah found a cache of weapons including 27 Iranian-made 107mm rockets and two launch systems, each capable of firing 20 rockets at once. The military has announced a series of such finds in recent days as it seeks to bolster its claim of Iranian support for rogue Shiite fighters. Tehran denies the allegations.

The US also said last week that US forces had killed at least 49 Shiite extremists in a ground and air assault in the militia stronghold of Sadr City. Witnesses and officials said 15 people were killed -- all civilians.

Al-Sadr nonetheless renewed his appeal to uphold the ceasefire and threatened to expel Mehdi Army members who do not, in what his office called a response to questions from supporters about whether the ceasefire still applied in the face of the US crackdown.

Al-Sadr aide Sheik Assad al-Nasseri said during a sermon in the mosque in Kufa, 160km south of Baghdad, that patience with the US operations was running out and the freeze could be lifted anytime.
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