tada Sadr says Iraq truce still stands

BAGHDAD — Radical cleric Muqtada Sadr reminded his followers Friday to observe a truce that has been nearing collapse, pulling back from a showdown against fellow Shiite Muslims in the government.

In a statement read in mosques during Friday prayers, Sadr said his recent threat of "open war" was aimed only at U.S.-led forces and he 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."

The U.S. military, meanwhile, reported the death of a soldier Thursday in a roadside bombing south of Baghdad. At least 4,052 U.S. personnel have died since the Iraq war began, according to icasualties.org.

U.S. officials credit a unilateral cease-fire declared by Sadr in August with helping to tamp down violence and are counting on the truce to help secure the gains as most of the additional American forces deployed to Iraq last year pull out by July.

But members of Sadr's Mahdi Army militia have clashed daily with U.S. and Iraqi troops since the country's Shiite-led government launched a crackdown in the southern oil hub of Basra a month ago. Hundreds of people have been killed in the fighting. Some of Sadr's fighters had hoped that he would rescind the cease-fire Friday.

U.S. soldiers killed 10 suspected militants overnight in helicopter strikes and ground clashes in northeast Baghdad, in the area of the Mahdi Army stronghold of Sadr City, the military said.

Hospital officials in Sadr City said they received the bodies of at least seven civilians killed in the clashes and treated 45 wounded. The Iraqi Interior Ministry, which oversees police, put the toll at 11 killed and 36 injured.

Two more civilians died and seven were injured in U.S. airstrikes in Husseiniya, a Mahdi Army stronghold 20 miles north of Baghdad, a ministry official said.

The U.S. military says it goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and blames the militants for fighting in heavily populated areas. Sadr's statement Friday included an instruction to "not utilize urban areas in our anti-occupation activities."

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a Shiite, has demanded that the Mahdi Army hand over its weapons and has threatened to bar Sadr's followers from participating in Oct. 1 provincial elections if the cleric does not disband his militia.