Baghdad

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. Army said they were militants. Sadr City residents said at least some were civilians, and photographs showed the dust-covered body of at least one child being pulled from a mountain of rubble after yesterday's fighting. Whatever the facts, at least 28 people were dead after the four-hour battle, the latest in a showdown between U.S. and Iraqi forces and Shiite militiamen over recent weeks. Based on the photographs, it appeared that at least one of the dead was a civilian.

BAGHDAD -- Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr reminded his followers yesterday to observe a truce that has been nearing collapse, pulling back from a showdown with fellow Shiite Muslims in the Iraqi government. In a statement read in mosques during Friday prayers, al-Sadr said his recent threat of "open war" was aimed only at U.S.-led forces and urged his followers not to fight Iraqi troops. He also urged the Iraqi police and army "to be close to their people and far from the occupier, because we will not be blessed with peace as long as they occupy our land."

BAGHDAD -- The main Sunni Arab political bloc announced yesterday that it was ready to rejoin the Shiite-led Cabinet, a step that could boost reconciliation efforts and help shore up Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's faltering government. Rashid Azzawi, a parliamentary representative for the Iraqi Accordance Front, said the Sunni alliance expects to submit its nominees for the Cabinet within days. The bloc ordered six members to leave the Cabinet last year, accusing al-Maliki and other Shiite politicians of ignoring Sunni interests, a reflection of the feeling among Iraq's Sunni minority that it is being sidelined by the majority Shiites and the Kurds, who dominate parliament and al-Maliki's government.

BAGHDAD -- An Arab satellite news channel reported that a man suspected of being Izzat Ibrahim Douri, who tops Iraq's most-wanted list, was captured yesterday by Iraqi soldiers in the northern part of the country. The Al Arabiya channel said that the suspect was caught during a raid in the Hamrin mountains that straddle Salahuddin, Diyala and Tamim provinces and that Iraqi officials were conducting DNA tests to confirm his identity. The U.S. military said it had no information on the raid, and one officer cautioned that there had been previous false alarms about the alleged capture of Douri in 2004 and 2005.

BAGHDAD -- Sunni militants launched deadly attacks around Iraq yesterday as a suicide truck bomb killed two U.S. Marines and 10 Iraqis in Anbar province, a female bomber struck a police station in eastern Iraq and a car bomb exploded in Baghdad near a well-known restaurant. Confrontations once more jolted Sadr City, the capital's Shiite slum, where the U.S. military said its forces fired a Hellfire missile that hit a car carrying militants and rockets. Police said the strike killed eight civilians, but the Americans said no civilians were in the area.

BAGHDAD -- After long treating radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia gingerly, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ridiculed him yesterday as a man who asks his followers to fight to the death while he resides in safety in Iran. Al-Sadr, who threatened Saturday to declare a formal end to a cease-fire he announced in August, was also described by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker as running a weakened military organization. The taunting comments came during an unannounced visit by Rice to the Iraqi capital, in which she praised an ongoing nationwide crackdown against armed militias led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government security forces.

BAGHDAD -- Hard-line Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened "open war" as Iraqi and U.S. forces battled his Mahdi Army militia in two key strongholds yesterday, raising the specter that a truce credited with reducing violence could end soon. The warning was the closest the cleric has come to canceling the truce he called in August, and it coincided with an Iranian denunciation of U.S. airstrikes in support of the Shiite-led government's military offensive. The United States accuses Iran of providing training, arms and other aid to Shiite extremists.

BAGHDAD -- A suicide bomber walked into a funeral for two cousins who had died fighting insurgents and blew himself up yesterday, killing at least 50 people, officials said. It was the most recent strike in an internal war among Sunni Arabs, some of whom have aligned themselves with the United States and others with al-Qaida in Iraq. "The gangsters threatened us not to make the funeral," Khalaf Farhan, wounded in the blast, recalled from his hospital bed. "They said if we hold the funeral they will kill more of us, from our tribe."

BAGHDAD -- Bombs in two provincial capitals killed more than 50 Iraqi civilians yesterday, underscoring the continuing threat posed by Sunni Muslim insurgents as they try to regain power in former strongholds. Coinciding with military efforts to curb the strength of Shiite militias in Baghdad and southern Iraq, the new attacks also portend the potential hurdles ahead for the Iraqi government as U.S. troop levels decrease through the summer. Iraqi troops will take on more responsibility for holding on to security gains made in the past year, and the challenge will be formidable if both Sunni and Shiite extremists are active.

BAGHDAD -- For more than two months, British journalist Richard Butler sat with a hood over his head wondering what his kidnappers in Basra were planning. Yesterday, gunshots rang through the house where he was held. There were shouts. The door to his room burst open, and Butler tore off his hood to see Iraqi army soldiers. They were as surprised to see Butler as he was to see them, according to Iraqi military officials, who described yesterday's rescue of the freelancer, under contract with CBS News, as a lucky find during a search of a house for illegal weapons.