U.S.-led raids target smuggling of alleged Iranian-made weapons

Worshippers take part in prayers Friday in the Shiite district of Sadr City in Baghdad.

U.S. deaths

As of Friday, at least 3,362 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Baghdad, Iraq ? U.S.-led forces on Friday arrested suspected Shiite militants accused of smuggling powerful bomb components from Iran, and clashes between Shiite factions broke out in two major cities. The U.S. announced the deaths of five American soldiers – three of them in bombings.

The arrests occurred during a raid early Friday in Baghdad’s teeming Shiite district of Sadr City, stronghold of the notorious Mahdi Army militia of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

A U.S. military statement did not identify them as Mahdi Army members but said they were part of a “secret cell” that smuggles powerful bombs known as “explosively formed penetrators,” or EFPs, from Iran and sends Shiite fighters from Iraq for training in Iran.

U.S. and some Iraqi officials suspect the Iranians may be stoking a growing power struggle among Shiite factions and political parties – despite the Tehran government’s insistence that it is working to help bring stability to its neighbor Iraq.

Clashes broke out Friday in Baghdad and in the Shiite shrine city of Najaf when police said Mahdi Army gunmen attacked offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Republic in Iraq, or SCIRI, a key member of the U.S.-backed Iraqi government but with strong ties to Tehran.

Four people were injured in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, prompting local authorities to impose a curfew. The clash in Baghdad occurred when Mahdi gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at a SCIRI office in the Habibiya district, injuring two guards, police said.

In Diwaniyah, a Shiite city 80 miles south of Baghdad, suspected Shiite gunmen attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol late Friday, killing one Iraqi soldier and wounding four civilians, police said.

It was unclear what provoked the attacks, but they appeared to be part of an escalating power struggle brewing throughout the dominant Shiite community, which intensified after Britain announced plans to draw down its troops in the mostly Shiite south.

Shiite parties are trying to oust the Shiite governor of oil-rich Basra province, and violence has broken out recently in Kut and other Shiite cities.

Some Mahdi Army members in Sadr City have said a pro-Iranian faction has been sending fighters to Iran for training. The members spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears for their own safety.