US troops strike Sadr City

Baghdad: Five suspected militia fighters were killed when US troops performed air strikes on the Shiite area of Sadr City, in Baghdad on Saturday.

The strikes come just one day after the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Al Sadr ended four months in hiding to demand that US troops leave Iraq.

The US military said in a statement that they had captured a "suspected leader in a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training." The militant leader is suspected of having ties to Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

The militia fighters were killed in air strikes on nine cars that were seen positioning themselves to attack American forces after the raid, the military said.

In the southern port city of Basra, the British military said "a number" of militia fighters were killed in an air strike overnight after Mahdi Army militia fighters attacked British troops with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machineguns.

The attacks were believed to be in retaliation for the killing of the top Mahdi Army commander in the city on Friday by British-backed Iraqi special forces, British military spokesman Major David Gell said in a statement.