Clashes broke out between security forces and Shia gunmen in Baghdad overnight and today, police said, killing seven people and putting more strain on a deal to end nearly two months of fighting.
Despite the further violence, residents in the eastern Baghdad stronghold of Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the US military said it was calmer there last night compared to recent weeks, indicating that fighting could be easing.
At least 28 people were wounded in clashes between US-backed Iraqi security forces and militiamen claiming allegiance to Sadr, police and hospital sources said.
Police said gunmen fought security forces in the cleric's eastern Baghdad bastion of Sadr City overnight in fighting that killed five people and wounded 22 in the crowded slum. Fighting also broke out in western Baghdad's Shula district, killing two and wounding six, police said.
Heavy automatic weapon fire echoed through the streets of Shula, also a stronghold of Sadr's Mehdi Army, today. US Apache attack helicopters hovered overhead while shops were closed and residents stayed indoors.
Iraq's ruling Shia alliance and Sadr's opposition movement in parliament reached an agreement on Saturday to end fighting in Sadr City that has killed hundreds of people.
A senior political aide to Sadr has urged patience with the truce, saying it might take time to have effect. But it remains clear how much control Sadr has over some of the tens of thousands of gunmen who profess allegiance to him.
Fighting flared in late March when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, himself a Shia, ordered a crackdown against Shi'ite militias in Baghdad and the southern city of Basra.
A spokesman for US forces in Baghdad, Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover, said Sadr City appeared to be more peaceful.
"According to ... soldiers on the ground it was relatively quiet (overnight)," he said, adding the only incident he knew of was a US air strike on three men planting a roadside bomb. The missile killed two of them, he said.
"We welcome the reduced levels of violence," Lieutenant-Colonel Stover said.
Mudhafar Nuri, a 35-year-old labourer who lives in the Sadr City slum, welcomed the calmer conditions.
"Last night was a quiet one. This is the first time we have witnessed such calm, without any bombardment," he said.
Salam Nassir, a member of the Mehdi Army, said his fighters had been told not to hinder Iraqi army operations.
"We received orders from the Sadr offices not to obstruct the job of the forces no matter what they do to us. But the Iraqi army should be more professional so people will cooperate with them," he said.
Mr Maliki says the operations against militias are intended to impose law and order. Sadrist officials have accused him of trying to sideline the cleric's popular mass movement before provincial elections in October.