Troops advance into Sadr city

US and Iraqi troops are today pouring into Baghdad’s main Shiite militia stronghold, testing the Shiites’ commitment to the US-promoted campaign to drive militants from the capital.

Outside Baghdad, US soldiers described a raid last week that uncovered a suspected Sunni “torture site” and the rescue of two Iraqi captives, who apparently had been spared immediate execution because the militants’ video camera broke and they wanted to film the killing.

The quiet but dramatic advance yesterday in Sadr City – involving nearly 1,200 US and Iraqi forces who did not fire a shot – marked one of the most significant developments in the security clampdown in Baghdad since it took effect nearly three weeks ago.

But it received the green light only after drawn-out talks between US commanders and political allies of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his powerful Mahdi Army.

Al-Sadr’s militiamen lowered their profile under intense government pressure to give the security operation a chance to root out both Sunni and Shiite extremists.

US military leaders, however, must walk a fine line as part of the tacit truce. They are seeking suspected Shiite death squads leaders, but must keep from squeezing al-Sadr’s militia too hard – and risk collapsing the entire drive to reclaim Baghdad from extremists and gangs.

“The indication that we are getting is a lot of the really bad folks have gone into hiding,” said Lt Col David Oclander shortly after troops moved into Sadr City’s teeming grid of low-rise buildings in northeast Baghdad.

Oclander said “not a shot was fired” as troops entered the area – which was constructed in the 1960s to house poor Shiites seeking work in the capital and was known as Saddam City until the former Iraqi leader’s fall in 2003.

As the insurgency picked up steam in the past few years, Sadr City became the site of frequent battles.

Last week, US and Iraqi forces began pinpoint raids into Sadr City seeking suspected leaders of Shiite death squads blamed for thousands of execution-style slayings of Sunni rivals in recent years.

Since Friday, military planners have worked inside a Sadr City police station in apparent preparations to create a permanent outpost, police said.