U.S. STRIKES
Iraqi police said two separate U.S. air strikes on Thursday killed six people and wounded 10 in Sadr City. Lt. Col. Steven Stover, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed two strikes on a suspected rocket site from a drone plane but said he was unaware of any deaths.
Late on Wednesday, a U.S. helicopter fired two missiles at gunmen in the slum who attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi security station, killing four, Stover said. Iraqi police and hospital officials said two of the four dead were young boys.
A roadside bomb also killed a U.S. soldier in Baghdad overnight, raising the U.S. military death toll in Iraq to 20 for April, putting this month on track to be the deadliest for American soldiers since September.
U.S. military deaths have averaged roughly one a day over the past six months but that number has doubled in April.
Still, police, the U.S. military and residents said the streets of Sadr City were calmer than in the past four days, when Sadr's militia battled the U.S. and Iraqi military.
"The situation is quieter. We are hearing sporadic gunfire and U.S. combat planes have been flying overhead but the Iraqi military is not in the streets like past days," Sadr City resident Raad al-Humairi said.
"Some shops have opened. People buy what they need and then the shops close again."
For the first time in many days, the U.S. Embassy said the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad had not sustained rocket or mortar attacks from Sadr's militia.
The Iraqi military plans to lift on Saturday a 2-week-old vehicle blockade in Sadr City that has led to piled-up rubbish and food and medicine shortages in the district of 2 million people.
On Thursday, U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a Sadr office in the town of Numaniya, south of Baghdad, seizing weapons and imposing a curfew, police said.
Under Bush's plan, the military will complete a withdrawal in July of some 20,000 extra combat troops deployed in the past year but then pause before deciding whether more can be pulled out. Bush also said he was reducing combat tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan to one year from 15 months.
