BAGHDAD — In a stucco compound at the center of the Sadr City neighborhood here, a follower of radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr gleefully handed out candies and toffees to visitors Monday.
"Have a chocolate," the thin, bearded man said. "This is for our victory over [Prime Minister Nouri] Maliki."
Nearly a week after Maliki's security forces began fighting what amounted to a draw with Sadr's Mahdi Army militia on the streets of the southern port of Basra and in Iraq's capital, armed militia members had melted into the background both in Basra and the cleric's longtime Baghdad stronghold.
But the signs of battle remained: burned tires, charred pavement, bomb and rocket craters on the streets of this Shiite slum, as hundreds walked and shopped under murals and ads festooned with the anti-American cleric's image.
Loudspeakers, meanwhile, blared praise for Sadr, who supporters say is stronger than ever after ordering his followers to lay down their weapons Sunday while demanding that the government stop its attacks and release followers of his who were detained.
Iraqi security sources said 116 people had been killed in Sadr City and 250 in Basra since the turmoil erupted last Tuesday. The increased bloodshed brought the Iraqi death toll for March to 1,079 people, according to the Health and Interior ministries. March has been the worst month for Iraqi fatalities since August, when 1,860 were killed.
The U.S. Army also announced the deaths of two American troops, one of them wounded in a bomb blast last week and the other killed in a bombing Monday in northeast Baghdad.
The resilience of the Mahdi Army militia appears to have surprised Maliki, who said his offensive was meant to crush lawless elements in Basra. Top Iraqi commanders acknowledged Monday that they had been taken aback.
"The presence of the armed men [in the street] made this operation become bigger than it was," said Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Mohammed Jassim, operations commander for Iraq's Defense Ministry.
On the edge of Sadr City, where a vehicle ban was still being enforced, an Iraqi army officer stared at a giant mural of Sadr's father, a grand ayatollah who died under the regime of Saddam Hussein and the man for whom the Baghdad district is named. "We need 100 years to be a strong military," the officer said.
