Roadside blasts kill 5 U.S. soldiers in Iraq

By Michael Holden

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Five American soldiers were killed in roadside bombings in Iraq on Friday, the U.S. military said on Saturday, while U.S. and Iraqi forces seized 37 suspects in raids against al Qaeda fighters and Shi'ite militiamen.

The latest arrests come as the U.S. military aggressively pursues Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, as well as what it describes as rogue elements of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army and other Shi'ite militia Washington says are supported by Iran.

Attacks are down by 60 percent since last June on the back of a boost of 30,000 extra U.S. troops, a decision by Sunni Arab tribal leaders to turn against al Qaeda and a six-month ceasefire ordered by Sadr last August.

On Friday a respected think-tank said U.S. forces should not provoke the Mehdi Army, once described by the Pentagon as the greatest threat to peace in Iraq, into the sort of widespread violence that took Iraq to the brink of civil war.

U.S. commanders say al Qaeda is now the biggest security threat in Iraq, while some rogue members of anti-U.S. cleric Sadr's splintered militia have ignored the ceasefire and other Shi'ite militia have continued attacks.

"There have been increases in some areas and great decreases in others," said U.S. military spokesman Major Mark Cheadle.

Imad al-Din al-Saidi, a prominent Mehdi Army figure in Baghdad's Sadr City, said Iraqi security forces and U.S. soldiers had taken advantage of his group's ceasefire.

"Those parties have viciously abused the decision through the many break-ins and the random arrests of people in Sadr's army and movement," he said, adding he did not think the cleric would renew the freeze when it expires later this month.