DIWANIYAH, Aug 29: Hard-pressed Iraqi government forces were forced to strike a truce with Shia militia fighters on Tuesday, as fierce fighting left 80 people dead.

As Iraq reeled from a three-day bout of bloodshed — sectarian and rebel attacks left 14 people dead, including four members of one family who were killed when mortar bombs hit their house in Baghdad’s mainly Shia neighbourhood of Al-Amel.

Since Saturday, when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki hosted a peace conference for tribal leaders, Iraq has been battered by firefights, murders and bombings, in one of the most violent periods of recent months.

Scores of Iraqi troops and civilians have been killed along with 12 US soldiers, and government forces had to battle to retain control of the mainly Shia city of Diwaniyah, 180 kilometres south of the capital.

“We reached a settlement with Mahdi Army forces to end the confrontation,” town councillor Sheikh Ghanim Abid said, as shops in Diwaniyah reopened and water and electricity supplies were turned back on.

“We killed 50 gunmen in the clashes and this incident resulted in the deaths of 23 of our soldiers and injuries to 30 of them,” Mr Maliki said.

The army has agreed not to enter residential areas for three days, while the Mahdi Army will withdraw its fighters and a militia commander who was arrested at the weekend will be brought to court within 24 hours, Sheikh Abid said.

“We are now watching the militia withdrawing. They started pulling out early this morning and they’re still going,” an Iraqi army captain said.

The Mahdi Army is nominally loyal to radical Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, whose party has ministers in the government and a large parliamentary bloc, but aides said the battle had been triggered by rogue elements.

Saheb Al-Ameri, the head of Sadr’s office in Najaf, said Diwaniyah’s governor met the firebrand cleric on Monday to negotiate an end to the battle, which he blamed on the ‘personal behaviour’ of some Mahdi Army members.

During Monday’s fighting, an American F-16 jet dropped a 220-kilo satellite-guided bomb on an ‘enemy position’ while flying in support of Iraqi and western troops, the US air force said.

Guerillas killed two Shia militiamen in an attack on the Mahdi Army office in Baquba, north of Baghdad.

Police also said more than 30 Shia families fled the village of Khan Bani Saad, southwest of the town, after their homes came under mortar attack from suspected Sunni fighters.

Baquba is the violent capital of a region just north of Baghdad in the grip of a dirty war between Sunni and Shia militias. Eight more civilians were gunned down in the area on Tuesday, and two blindfolded corpses were also found.

Farther north, in the oil hub of Kirkuk, one policeman was killed when his patrol car was blasted by a roadside bomb. Three policemen and two bystanders were wounded.

The battle in Diwaniyah underlined the growing confidence of Iraq’s Shia militias, some of which have been accused of involvement in sectarian killings of members of the Sunni community.

Mr Maliki’s government has so far been unable or unwilling to rein in these armed groups, which are linked to powerful figures in the ruling coalition.

The US military’s losses in Iraq have increased to 2,631, according to a count based on Pentagon figures, with the military reporting the deaths of 12 soldiers in the past three days alone.—AFP