Roadside blasts kill 5 U.S. soldiers in Iraq

By Michael Holden

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Five American soldiers were killed in roadside bombings in Iraq on Friday, the U.S. military said on Saturday, while U.S. and Iraqi forces seized 37 suspects in raids against al Qaeda fighters and Shi'ite militiamen.

The latest arrests come as the U.S. military aggressively pursues Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, as well as what it describes as rogue elements of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army and other Shi'ite militia Washington says are supported by Iran.

Attacks are down by 60 percent since last June on the back of a boost of 30,000 extra U.S. troops, a decision by Sunni Arab tribal leaders to turn against al Qaeda and a six-month ceasefire ordered by Sadr last August.

On Friday a respected think-tank said U.S. forces should not provoke the Mehdi Army, once described by the Pentagon as the greatest threat to peace in Iraq, into the sort of widespread violence that took Iraq to the brink of civil war.

U.S. commanders say al Qaeda is now the biggest security threat in Iraq, while some rogue members of anti-U.S. cleric Sadr's splintered militia have ignored the ceasefire and other Shi'ite militia have continued attacks.

"There have been increases in some areas and great decreases in others," said U.S. military spokesman Major Mark Cheadle.

Imad al-Din al-Saidi, a prominent Mehdi Army figure in Baghdad's Sadr City, said Iraqi security forces and U.S. soldiers had taken advantage of his group's ceasefire.

"Those parties have viciously abused the decision through the many break-ins and the random arrests of people in Sadr's army and movement," he said, adding he did not think the cleric would renew the freeze when it expires later this month.

In Friday's bloodiest incident, four soldiers were killed by a roadside blast while on patrol northwest of the Iraqi capital, the U.S. military said in a statement. It blamed a deeply buried roadside bomb, a signature al Qaeda tactic.

Another soldier died in an explosion near his vehicle and three others were wounded near Tikrit in northern Iraq.

So far this month 13 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq, according to icasualties.org, an independent Web site that tracks military deaths there. A total of 3,957 American soldiers have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

ARRESTS

U.S. forces said on Saturday they had detained 15 militants in central and northern Iraq in the past two days, including a suspected Shi'ite militia leader and two al Qaeda operatives.

Iraqi police said they had arrested 15 militants in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, 110 km (70 miles) south of Baghdad, during raids on Friday.

Another seven, some said by police to include former members of the Mehdi Army, were held in Nassiriya, about 375 km (235 miles) south of the capital.