al-Sadr may end Iraqi cease fire
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD (AP) - Anti- U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr may let a six-month cease-fire expire as soon as Saturday, a move that could send his Shiite militia fighters back out on the streets and jeopardize recent security gains that have led to a sharp decline in violence.

Iraqi police, meanwhile, held funerals Wednesday for 14 officers killed the night before as they responded to a rocket attack launched from a predominantly Shiite neighborhood against U.S. bases in the capital.

In a separate attack, three American troops were killed by a roadside bomb Tuesday night in northwestern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Their names were not released.

Al-Sadr's Shiite Mahdi Army is among the most powerful militias in Iraq, and the ceasefire he ordered last August has been credited with helping reduce violence around Iraq by 60 percent or more in the past six months.

Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman for al-Sadr in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, said that if the cleric failed to issue a statement by Saturday saying that the cease-fire was extended, "then that means the freeze is over." Al-Sadr's followers would be free to resume attacks.

On an Internet site representing al-Sadr, al-Obeidi said that al-Sadr "either will announce the extension or will stay silent and not announce anything. If stays silent, that means that the freeze is over."

On Monday, a rocket volley landed on an Iraqi housing complex near the Baghdad international airport and a nearby U.S. military base, killing at least five people and wounding 16, including two U.S. soldiers, officials said.

The attacks have been among the most intense to strike the capital in weeks as violence has declined sharply with an influx of some 30,000 U.S. troops, a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and al-Sadr's cease-fire.