U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had blamed the Mahdi Army for violence in southern Iraq and in Baghdad on a visit Sunday to Iraq.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have been edging into Sadr City to erect a concrete wall to partition the area, from which militiamen regularly fire rockets and mortar shells at the Green Zone, the compound that holds the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy.
Clashes between U.S. forces and the Shiite militiamen spread since late Tuesday into Husseiniya, on Baghdad's northern outskirts. U.S. soldiers came under rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire Tuesday night while recovering a Bradley fighting vehicle that was stuck in the mud there, said Lt. Col. Steven Stover, a military spokesman. Six suspected militants were killed in the engagement that followed, he said by e-mail.
