"Clearly we are concerned that the ceasefire could fray. That's in no one's interests, and there is a lot of intensive discussion ongoing right now," General David Petreaus said at a news conference here.

"I think there has to be a very, very sensitive approach, as this goes forward, to make sure folks don't feel like they're been backed into a corner from which there is no alternative," he said.

Petraeus acknowledged that the unilateral ceasefire that Sadr imposed on his followers in August has contributed to the sharp decline in violence in Iraq.

With little notice, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki launched a campaign against Sadrist and other armed groups in the southern port of Basra that sparked fighting in Baghdad and some southern cities.

Petraeus told Congress on Tuesday Maliki gave him only a few days warning of the campaign, which stalled when Iraqi police and some army units deserted or refused to fight.

The general said the campaign was indequately planned or prepared.

earlier related report
US air strikes kill six in Baghdad Shiite bastion
Two US air strikes in Baghdad's embattled Sadr City district killed six people as fighting flared for a fifth straight day Thursday between Shiite militiamen and security forces hunting mortar and rocket teams.

Violence in other parts of the Iraqi capital and across the country killed another eight people, among them a policeman and a soldier, security and medical officials said.

An air strike mid-morning in the heart of Sadr City on a building crammed with oxygen cylinders -- which can be used to make roadside bombs -- killed two people and wounded four, the officials said.

They added an earlier air raid, around midnight, killed four and wounded six near Al-Albaith mosque in the centre of Sadr City, stronghold of Shiite radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr whose Mahdi Army militiamen are fighting Iraqi and US forces.

An AFP reporter who toured Sadr City in the afternoon said streets were shaken sporadically by the sound of automatic gunfire while loud explosions were heard from time to time.

The main streets were deserted. Residents said the roadways are primed with bombs placed by Shiite militiamen fighting US forces. US Apache helicopters were seen flying high overhead while the sound of warplanes could be heard.

Around 70 people have been killed and scores wounded since fresh clashes broke out in Sadr City on Sunday, according to security and medical officials.

The chief of the Sadr movement in Sadr City said residents were "under siege" and warned its militia were ready to take up arms again.

"Today, three million inhabitants of Sadr City are under siege. They are prevented from leaving and from reaching food supplies," Salman al-Fraiji told AFP.

"We will obey the orders of Moqtada al-Sadr but if the violence against the Iraqis continues, if the blood of Iraqis continues to be spilled, the ceasefire will definitely be lifted," he said, referring to a truce being observed by Sadr's Mahdi Army militia since August.

The US military says it is chasing "criminals" firing rockets into Baghdad and the heavily-fortified Green Zone where the Iraqi government and US embassy are based.

A US embassy official said military operations in Sadr City were succeeding in pushing back the rocket and mortar teams and that the heavy barrages of projectiles which had bombarded the Green Zone since March 23, killing two civilians and two US soldiers and wounding dozens, had subsided.

"Some rockets came in on Wednesday, but they were not very accurate," said the official, who asked not to be named.

"We're pushing them back, making it more difficult for them to hit us. We're making it difficult for them to work on their aim," the official told AFP.

US embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said that since March 23, "there have been daily indirect fire attackz on the (Green Zone) on two days, March 24 and April 4. So far we have not received any indirect fire today (Thursday)."

Meanwhile, at least eight people were killed in attacks by insurgents across Iraq on Thursday, security officials said.

Gunmen dressed in Iraqi army uniforms stormed into the house of Musa Awad in Hawijah, near the northern oil city of Kirkuk, killing the municipal employee's two sons and wounding him and his wife, said police Captain Mahmood al-Juburi.

In another incident, two members of a local anti-Qaeda front were killed by gunmen in the town of Tuz Khurmatu, south of Kirkuk, police said.

In central Baghdad, a policeman and a civilian were killed when a roadside bomb struck a passing police patrol, while gunmen shot dead two people, including an Iraqi soldier, in separate attacks in the southern city of Amara.

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