Violence raked Baghdad today as an Iraqi general took charge of the security operation in the capital and Iraqi police and soldiers manned new roadblocks - initial steps indicating the start of the long-anticipated joint operation with American forces to curb sectarian bloodshed.

Delegates at Iraq’s National Conference called on radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to abandon his uprising against US and Iraqi troops and pull his fighters out of a holy shrine in Najaf.