SHI’ITE cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened yesterday to lift a seven month freeze on his Mahdi army militia if the Iraqi government does not halt attacks on his followers or set a timetable for a US withdrawal.

US TROOPS killed 11 members of a Mahdi army splinter group yesterday, US officials said. The military also announced that it had detained two more suspects in the capture of three US soldiers earlier this year.

Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities by his Mahdi Army militia in order to reorganise the force, an aide said today.

US forces battled rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s gunmen in a Baghdad slum in clashes today that killed 34 people, including one American soldier, and wounded 193.

Militiamen loyal to rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr removed their weapons from the revered Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf today as a two-week-old uprising centred on the holy site appeared to be drawing to an end.