BAGHDAD — The U.S. military closed down two major highways into Baghdad yesterday in the latest disruption caused by intensified attacks by anti-U.S. insurgents. U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reported progress in talks aimed at easing the fighting in Fallujah, and the besieged city had its quietest day yet.
Sections of the two highways, north and south of the capital, were closed off to repair damage from a mounting number of roadside bombs. Top military officials suggested the routes remained vulnerable to attacks by insurgents who have been targeting U.S. military supply lines.
“We’ve got to fix those roads. We’ve also got to protect those roads,” Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad.
The military warned that civilians found on the closed sections “may be considered to be anti-coalition forces” and come under U.S. fire. Gen. Kimmitt said civilians would be redirected around the closed sections.
“There are many ways to get into Baghdad and many ways for getting out of Baghdad,” he said.
Attacks by gunmen at the western, northern and southern entrances to the city have targeted key military supply lines, forcing the repeated closure of the main Baghdad-Amman road through the violent western district of Abu Ghraib.
On Friday, militants showed video of a U.S. soldier captured during one such attack on April 9. The soldier, Army Pfc. Keith M. Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, was captured in the same raid in which fighters seized Macon, Miss., truck driver Thomas Hamill.
Meanwhile, two Japanese hostages — an aid worker and a free-lance journalist — were released yesterday to the same group of Islamic clerics who negotiated the freedom of three other Japanese hostages earlier this week.
Gunfire was nearly completely halted in Fallujah on Friday night, and the quiet continued through yesterday. A nominal truce in place since April 11 had been shaken repeatedly by nighttime battles as both insurgents and Marines dug in.
Talks toward ending the standoff are to resume tomorrow, but the top U.S. military negotiator suggested their continuation depended on continued quiet.
“I can’t stress enough how key it is for the cease-fire to hold over the next 24 to 48 hours,” said Maj. Gen. Joseph Weber, the top U.S. military negotiator.
Negotiations focused on strengthening a fragile truce, allowing residents access to hospitals and arranging the return of tens of thousands who have fled the city.
The two sides also are working on a way to carry out the handover of the killers of four American civilians, whose slaying and mutilation sparked the Marine assault on Fallujah, begun on April 5, said a representative of the Iraqi Governing Council at the talks.
In the south, U.S. troops skirmished for a second day with militiamen loyal to radical cleric Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr. His aides said Iraqi-led mediation aimed at resolving a standoff with the Americans had broken down.
U.S. commanders have said they have no plans for the time being to move into Najaf, the Shi’ite holy city, where Sheik al-Sadr is holed up in his office. About 2,500 U.S. troops deployed last week to the outskirts of Najaf on a mission to kill or capture him.
A top al-Sadr aide, Jabir al-Khafaji, said mediation by Iraqi politicians had ended because of U.S. conditions that the cleric’s Mahdi’s Army be disbanded.
Militiamen attacked two U.S. Humvees outside Najaf, sparking a battle, witnesses said. Al-Sadr loyalists also fired mortars at the Spanish army base in the city, but there were no casualties.
A coalition soldier — apparently a member of the Spanish-led force in the city — was killed the previous night in fighting with the militia, U.S. military officials said.
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