U.S. raids targeting Iranian-made weapons

BAGHDAD -- U.S.-led forces Friday arrested suspected Shiite militants accused of smuggling powerful bomb components from Iran, and clashes between Shiite factions broke out in two major cities. The United States announced the deaths of five American soldiers -- three of them in bombings.

The arrests occurred during a raid early Friday in Baghdad's teeming Shiite district of Sadr City, stronghold of the notorious Mahdi Army militia of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

A U.S. military statement did not identify them as Mahdi Army members but said they were part of a "secret cell" that smuggles powerful bombs known as "explosively formed penetrators," or EFPs, from Iran and sends Shiite fighters from Iraq for training in Iran.

U.S. and some Iraqi officials suspect the Iranians may be stoking a growing power struggle among Shiite factions and political parties -- despite the Tehran government's insistence that it is working to help bring stability to its neighbor Iraq.

Clashes broke out Friday in Baghdad and in the Shiite shrine city of Najaf when police said Mahdi Army gunmen attacked offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Republic in Iraq, or SCIRI, a key member of the U.S.-backed Iraqi government but with strong ties to Tehran.

Four people were injured in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, prompting local authorities to impose a curfew. The clash in Baghdad occurred when Mahdi gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at a SCIRI office in the Habibiya district, injuring two guards, police said.

In Diwaniyah, a Shiite city 80 miles south of Baghdad, suspected Shiite gunmen attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol late Friday, killing one Iraqi soldier and wounding four civilians, police said.