BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraqi troops carried out search operations in a neighbourhood of Baghdad bordering Sadr City on Monday but a truce in the Shiite militia bastion appeared to hold, security officials said.
Five suspected members of the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr were detained in the overnight operations in the Al-Shaab neighbourhood, just outside Sadr City, the officials said.
"Five people were arrested, and quantities of weapons, including more than 20 bombs, were found during the raids by Iraqi forces in Al-Shaab," an interior ministry official said.
US-backed troops used loudhailers to ask for the cooperation of residents while the searches were underway, the official said, adding that the operation had ended by midday (0900 GMT).
The army and police cordoned off the entire area for several hours and searched several houses for weapons and ammunition.
The operation came as a truce agreed between the Sadr movement and the Iraqi government earlier this month to end seven weeks of deadly clashes continued to hold in Sadr City.
The head of a five-member delegation sent by the Sadr movement to Sadr City last week, Sheikh Mohanned Moussawi, told residents that they should respect the truce but keep up their political activities against the US troop presence.
The truce deal provides for the Iraqi security forces to patrol Sadr City but the military had yet to deploy in the neighbourhood on Monday.
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