BAGHDAD, Iraq – An informal truce announced on Friday brought a tentative end to a bloody, nine-day battle between U.S. troops and Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite Muslim militia, but thousands of Iraqis still marched in key cities to show their support for the renegade cleric and to condemn what they consider an American incursion into the Shiite heartland.

Reports that al-Sadr was wounded by shrapnel during the clashes inflamed anti-American sentiment, with protesters vowing revenge and new recruits for the cleric’s scrappy Mahdi Army militia. Iraqi government officials, in talks with al-Sadr’s aides, dismissed the reports as manufactured to incite more violence.

A cease-fire would be an important success for interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a moderate Shiite whose leadership has received its biggest challenge yet from al-Sadr’s latest uprising. Even with a truce in place, however, Allawi faces lingering outrage from Iraqis and key Shiite allies for allowing U.S. troops to enter sacred areas.

Talks are expected to continue today, and several participants in the negotiations said they hoped to announce a formal cease-fire before delegates are scheduled to meet on Sunday to pick a national assembly – a crucial step toward elections.

A kidnapped British journalist was released Friday with minor injuries less than 24 hours after gunmen seized him from a hotel in the southern port city of Basra. James Brandon, 23, on assignment for the Sunday Telegraph, was shown in a video on satellite television with kidnappers who threatened to kill him unless U.S. troops withdrew from Najaf, the holiest of southern Shiite cities. Brandon reportedly was released after al-Sadr aides intervened on his behalf.

“Journalists are our brothers, our friends,” said Sheik Salah al Ubaidi, an al-Sadr spokesman in Baghdad. “They reflect our opinions and convey our voices to all of the world.”

U.S. military officials confirmed a reduction of operations in Najaf, where soldiers and militiamen fought in a sprawling cemetery and near the revered Imam Ali shrine this week. Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, the spokesman for U.S. military operations, said in a written statement that U.S. troops continued to respect holy sites despite attacks launched from the area by the Mahdi Army.

Ambulances were allowed into Najaf on Friday to evacuate the wounded. The fighting, which began Aug. 5, killed more than 600 Iraqis and wounded at least 1,200, according to figures from the U.S. military and the Iraqi Health Ministry. At least five American troops were killed in the Najaf clashes and 19 were wounded.

In protests that drew thousands in major cities, Shiite and Sunni Iraqis described Allawi as an “American agent” who had adopted the “iron hammer” policies of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Some protesters threw stones at the offices of Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord political party.

“Isn’t Iyad Allawi ashamed to go on TV and say we’re sovereign?” screamed one protester to the cheers of the crowd.

Top al-Sadr aides said the Mahdi Army was prepared to leave Najaf and use weapons only in self-defense if Allawi’s administration met a list of demands. The conditions include withdrawing American troops from Najaf, restoring basic services to the city, turning over security of holy shrines to religious police, releasing some prisoners and speeding the path to general elections.

Sheik Fateh Kashef al Ghitta, a Shiite political analyst who was involved in earlier cease-fire negotiations, said Allawi painted himself into a corner by ordering his fledgling national security forces to face the Mahdi Army. Shiite troops wouldn’t dare fire at their sacred shrines, while Sunni troops are banned by religious decree from battling fellow Muslims, al Ghitta said.

The result, he continued, is that Allawi was forced once again to rely on unpopular U.S. troops to crush al-Sadr’s rebellion, weakening the prime minister’s leadership and raising questions about the extent of Iraqi sovereignty.

“For some time, the negotiations stumbled, but they are continuing now,” al Ghitta said. “We didn’t believe the Iraqi National Guard and policemen were fighting near the shrines. It was the Americans. The Iraqi forces know how sensitive and sacred these places are.”

At least a thousand al-Sadr supporters moved communal Friday prayers to the gates of the Iraqi government center in Baghdad. Under the wary eyes of American and Iraqi troops perched on rooftops and stationed behind concrete barriers, protesters condemned Allawi’s government in a raucous yet peaceful demonstration. Even some Iraqi policemen festooned their government vehicles with posters of al-Sadr.

“I’m proud of them and I’m worried about them,” said Lt. Anis Ali, 34, an Iraqi National Guardsman overseeing protesters with U.S. soldiers. “Part of me wishes I could be with them.”

Sheik Hazem al Araji, a top Baghdad representative for al-Sadr, linked arms with protesters under the blazing sun and made clear what would happen if Allawi refused conditions of the truce: “We’ll all go to Najaf.”

The crowd grew unruly as a U.S. helicopter flew overhead. Protesters sliced their hands as they thrust back the military’s razor-wire cordons. Talk of al-Sadr’s reported injuries to the chest and legs brought several protesters to tears.

“We will be shields for him, even if the tanks roll over us,” said Rajaa Khayun, 26, part of a women’s group supporting al-Sadr. “His injuries are a medal to him and to us. This shows he is on the path to martyrdom.”

“It makes me wish I could become a bomb in the face of the Americans,” added Saad Raheem, a 25-year-old protester.

At the vast Umm al Qura mosque, the seat of Iraq’s most militant and influential Sunni Muslim group, demonstrators chanted “Sunni and Shiite are united against the will of the Americans” after a fiery sermon that called on Sunnis to donate food and medicine to embattled Shiite cities.

“The situation in Najaf is a war crime carried out by the United States,” said Jamal Seyyed Ali, a Sunni Kurd from the northern town of Sulaimaniyah who came to Baghdad to pray at Umm al Qura. “The big, arrogant United States feels it must kill women and children. I want all the Americans to leave Iraq, along with the Iraqi agents they brought from the West.”

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