Baghdad, Iraq ? An important Sunni cleric urged Iraq’s new president Friday to buck U.S. pressure and free thousands of suspected rebels, a sign the religious group most often associated with the Iraqi insurgency might be willing to work with the new government.

But there was no letup in violence, as militants set off four bombs that killed at least two civilians and wounded 14 in Baghdad, capping a bloody week of attacks and clashes.

Also Friday, Ukraine began withdrawing some of its 1,462 soldiers from Iraq amid plans to have them all out by year’s end, the U.S. military said. It said the Ukrainian force would be down to 900 soldiers by May 12.

If President Jalal Talabani “wants to begin a new page, he must first release those in jail. Secondly, there must be a full pardon,” Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarrai, a cleric in the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, said during Friday prayers.

He also urged Talabani to refuse to “obey and kneel to pressure from” U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The United States has opposed freeing prisoners or pardoning insurgents.

It remains unclear how much say Talabani will have in his largely ceremonial post. Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari is putting together a Cabinet and it isn’t known if the new government backs a pardon.

After he was sworn in as president this month, Talabani appealed to Iraq’s homegrown militants to work with the newly elected leadership and suggested they could be pardoned, although he said the Iraqi government would continue to fight foreign insurgents.