BAGHDAD, Jan 4: Iraqi authorities ordered a one-day vehicle ban in the volatile city of Baqouba on Friday in the wake of a series of deadly suicide bombings and other attacks by Al Qaeda in Iraq against predominantly Sunni fighters that have allied with the United States.

The ban also comes as the US military stepped up operations against Al Qaeda cells and networks in Diyala province, of which Baqouba is the capital.

The US military announced it had killed a senior Al Qaeda in Iraq leader, Muhammad Khalil Ibrahim, during a Dec 28 airstrike in Mahmoudiya, about 30 kilometers south of Baghdad, in an area known as the “Triangle of Death” just south of Baghdad. It identified Ibrahim as “the deputy military leader for the Al Qaeda in Iraq network operating south of Baghdad”.

Clerics loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr called on his followers on Friday to respect cease-fire against American troops and to try and make peace with rival factions.

The calls came during Friday prayers in Kufa and the cleric’s Baghdad stronghold of Sadr city, and were part of recent attempt by al-Sadr to patch things up two of the most influential Shiite movements in Iraq.

They are Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim and his Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the largest Shia political party, as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa party.

“We Sadrists are moving in the way of Muqtada’s peaceful initiatives in the provinces, and especially the ones that witnessed violence.” Abdul Hadi al-Mohammadawi, a senior aide of radical Muqtada al-Sadr, said in his sermon.—AP