Seven die in clashes in Baghdad's Sadr City

The dead were all men and the wounded included three womenand three children, they said.

The U.S. military, which has been engaged in nearly twomonths of urban warfare with militants in Sadr City and otherstrongholds of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, said it knew oftwo deaths in fighting overnight.

"We killed two thugs," Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover, aspokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad, said. "Baghdad isrelatively quiet."

U.S. officials say clashes have eased since Saturday, whenSadr's opposition movement in parliament reached an agreementwith the ruling Shi'ite alliance to end the violence.

But sporadic battles have continued and it is unclear howmuch control the anti-American Sadr has over some of the tensof thousands of gunmen in Iraq who profess allegiance to him.

The U.S. military says the violence is being carried out byrogue elements of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, which it says arearmed, trained and funded by Iran. Tehran denies the charges.

Fighting initially flared in late March when Prime MinisterNuri al-Maliki ordered a crackdown on Shi'ite militias in thesouthern city of Basra, triggering fierce resistance from MehdiArmy fighters.

(Reporting by Aseel Kami; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing byGiles Elgood)