Signs of normalcy in Sadr City amid ceasefire

Militants were withdrawing from the streets and shops were reopening on the first day of a cease-fire between Shia extremists and US-backed Iraqi forces following two months of intense clashes.
Authorities in Baghdad's Sadr City reported no violence Sunday.
"Today, people are very happy and very optimistic," said Sadiq Jaafar, a 30-year-old father. "Last night for the first time in more than 40 days we were able to sleep without being woken up by explosions or gunfire."
The government said it retained the right to chase wanted militants and search houses in order to confiscate weapons. The US military has made no comment on the reported cease-fire.
Thousands of civilians have fled their homes in the teeming slum home to nearly 40 percent of Baghdad's population and aid groups said some areas are desperately short of food and medicine after seven weeks of street battles.
Followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who was apparently instrumental in brokering the cease-fire, distributed food in the neighbourhood Sunday, residents said.
The bulk of al-Sadr's 60,000-strong Mahdi Army is not believed to have participated in the clashes, instead adhering to a general cease-fire ordered by al-Sadr last August. The violence is blamed on splinter groups believed to be acting on their own. Al-Sadr has directed his supporters to only fight when attacked.
Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has called on al-Sadr to disband the Mahdi Army and vowed to disarm its members.
"We have concerns about this agreement," a senior commander of the Mahdi Army, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said Sunday. "When US-led forces enter the area, we fear that they will pursue us."
The commander spoke by telephone from the most troubled southern part of the district, where US and Iraqi forces are building a barrier reaching up to 12 feet high to isolate it and disrupt supply and escape routes for militants.
During the clashes, Shia extremists fired rockets or mortars from the area toward the heavily fortified Green Zone, housing the US embassy and much of the Iraqi government offices. They often fell short, killing or wounding civilians in downtown Baghdad.
The latest conflict flared in late March after al-Maliki ordered a crackdown on armed Shia factions in the southern city of Basra, the nation's second-largest urban area. Mahdi fighters quickly rose up in Basra and Sadr City, their stronghold in Baghdad.
Meanwhile, the US military on Sunday said four people, including a woman and a child, were killed in an operation against al-Qaeda in Iraq near the northern city of Mosul on Saturday.
The military regretted killing "civilians" in the operation against what was described as associates of foreign al-Qaeda fighters. The woman and the child were riding in the same vehicle with the gunmen, it said.
Iraq's security forces on Saturday launched a new operation against al-Qaeda in Mosul, which was considered the last important urban staging ground for al-Qaeda in Iraq after losing its strongholds in Baghdad and other areas during the US troop "surge" last year.
About 140 people have been arrested in raids and some 120 roadside bombs were seized in a house in western Mosul, a police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said Sunday.
The military on Sunday also announced that one US soldier was killed when the vehicle he was travelling in rolled over near al-Asad, home to the second largest air base in Iraq.
Sunday's announcement raises the number of the US military losses in Iraq to at least 4,075 since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.