Baghdad, Iraq ? Two Shiite militia commanders said Thursday that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has stopped protecting radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Madhi Army under pressure from Washington, while the fighters described themselves as under siege in their Sadr City stronghold.

Their account of an organization now fighting for its very existence could represent a tactical and propaganda feint, but there was mounting evidence the militia is increasingly off balance and has ordered its gunmen to melt back into the population. To avoid capture, commanders report no longer using cell phones and fighters are removing their uniforms and hiding their weapons during the day.

During much of his nearly eight months in office, al-Maliki, who relies on al-Sadr’s political backing, has blocked or ordered an end to many U.S.-led operations against the Mahdi Army.

As recently as Oct. 31, al-Maliki, trying to capitalize on American voter discontent with the war and White House reluctance to open a public fight with the Iraqi leader just before the election, won U.S. agreement to lift military blockades on Sadr City and another Shiite enclave where an American soldier was abducted.

But al-Maliki reportedly had a change of heart in late November while going into a meeting in Jordan with President Bush. It has since been disclosed that the Iraqi leader’s vision for a new security plan for Baghdad, to which Bush has committed 17,500 additional U.S. troops, was outlined in that meeting.

Al-Maliki is said by aides to have told Bush that he wanted the Iraqi army and police in the lead, but he would no longer interfere to prevent U.S. attempts to roll up the Mahdi Army.

In a meeting before his session with Bush, Jordan’s King Abdullah II was said by al-Maliki confidants to have conveyed the increasing anger of fellow Sunni leaders in the Middle East over the continuing slaughter of Sunni Muslims at the hands of Shiite death squads.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, center, speaks during a meeting with the heads of foreign diplomatic missions in Iraq on Wednesday at the fortified Green Zone area in Baghdad.

Until February, much of the violence in Iraq was the work of al-Qaida in Iraq and allied Sunni organizations. They had killed thousands of Shiites in bomb attacks in what was seen as an al-Qaida bid to foment civil war.

When al-Qaida bombers blew up the Golden Dome mosque, a Shiite shrine in the mainly Sunni city of Samarra on Feb. 22, Shiite militiamen, especially the Mahdi Army fighters based in Sadr City, stormed out of the enclave in a drive for revenge that has only grown in ferocity.

The U.N. reported this week that the sectarian fighting killed more than 34,000 Iraqis last year, a figure that was criticized but not disputed Thursday by the Iraqi government.

With the Sunni threat in mind, evidence since the meetings in Jordan indicates that al-Maliki has kept his pledge to Bush that there would be no further interference in favor of Shiite militias.