BAGHDAD, April 8: A one-day vehicle curfew has been imposed on Baghdad for Wednesday, the fifth anniversary of the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Baghdad military command announced.

The curfew will operate from 5:00 am to midnight (0200 GMT to 2100 GMT) on a day the authorities have also declare as a public holiday across the country.

The movement of powerful Moqtada al-Sadr had called a mass anti-American demonstration in Baghdad to mark the anniversary but cancelled it on Tuesday.

“I call upon the Iraqi people to postpone the march. I am afraid for them.

I want to save Iraqi blood. I am afraid that an Iraqi may lay his hand on them,” Sadr said in a statement issued by his office in the holy city of Najaf.

Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia has since Sunday been battling US and Iraqi security forces in Sadr City, the cleric’s east Baghdad bastion, in sporadic but fierce clashes which have killed more than 40 people and wounded dozens.—AFP