The troops, using U.S. air cover, and arrested five followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said Lt. Mohammed al-Shammari of the provincial police. There were no reports of casualties. The U.S. military had no immediate comment on the report.

U.S. demands for a crackdown on the militia have been a sticking point in relations with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose coalition government is heavily dependent on al-Sadr's political support.

On Tuesday, U.S. forces dismantled road blocks around the Mahdi Army's Baghdad stronghold, the Sadr City neighborhood, following an order from the prime minister that was the latest in a series of challenges to the U.S. designed to test Washington's readiness to give him a greater say in securing the world's most violent capital.

Aides to the prime minister say he hopes to expand his authority by exploiting the pressure on President Bush over rising voter dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war and the rising U.S. death toll.

Iraq has moved toward repairing a 24-year breach in formal diplomatic relations with neighboring Syria. The Syrian foreign minister is considering a visit to Baghdad this month, a Syrian official said, in what would be the first trip by a top Syrian figure since Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003.

Al-Maliki's government also reported progress expanding diplomatic ties, with eight countries agreeing to open Iraqi embassies in their capitals, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

Commitments have been received from South Korea, Ukraine, Denmark, Slovakia, Serbia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Nigeria, the statement said.

Insurgents and Shiite militia groups continued attacks on U.S. forces and Iraqis who work with them.

An Iraqi translator with U.S. forces, Haidar Muhsin, was shot dead late Tuesday in front of his home in Diwaniyah, the second translator killed in the southern city in recent days. An Iraqi-American linguist with the U.S. army was abducted in Baghdad last week and remains missing.

In fresh attacks Wednesday, unknown gunmen riding in a private car shot dead police officer Izzaddin Abbas in central Baghdad as he rode his motorcycle home, police Lt. Bilal Ali Majeed said. A clerk with the Ministry of Industry was shot and killed in northeastern Baghdad as he was driving to work, police Lt. Thayer Mahmoud said.

A police officer was among three people shot dead in the northern city of Mosul, said Brig. Sa'eed Ahmed of the provincial Police Information Office. Mosul police also discovered the charred body of an apparent murder victim, Ahmed said.

The bodies of three people who were shot after being blindfolded and bound at the wrists were found dumped in the capital's eastern districts, Capt. Mohammed Abdul Ghani, of the city's Rashad Police Station said. Scores of such bodies have been found in recent months, most believed to have been abducted and tortured by sectarian death squads.

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