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Agencie France Presse:

Gun-toting fighters of hardline cleric Moqtada al-Sadr melted from the streets on Monday after days of fierce clashes with security forces as a curfew in Baghdad was lifted and eased in Basra.

After six days of intense fighting with security forces, Sadr on Sunday pulled his fighters off the streets, signalling an end to the firefights which have killed more than 320 people across Iraq.

AFP correspondents in Baghdad and Basra said the militants had disappeared on Monday and the fighting which had rocked the two cities since last Tuesday had died down.

The Sadr movement in Baghdad confirmed fighters from the cleric’s feared Mahdi Army militia were no longer deployed on the streets.

“The Sadr movement and Jaish al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army) are committed to the order of Sadr. We are implementing the order of Sadr,” said Hamdallah al-Rikabi, spokesman for the cleric’s movement in west Baghdad.

Haider al-Asadi, a fighter from the Mahdi Army in the cleric’s Baghdad bastion of Sadr City, said all the militants were “now sitting in their homes.”

“They are following Sadr’s orders,” said Asadi, 36.

“But we are ready, should the Americans come inside our district, to fight. We have enough IEDs (improvised explosive devices) for them. If they come, we will defend ourselves.”

Asadi said the US troops were on the edge of the neighbourhood and had “deployed snipers on the rooftops of houses.”

Witnesses said pedestrians and vehicles were now back on the streets of Baghdad after the curfew was lifted in the capital, although a vehicle ban remained in force in Sadr City and two other Shiite areas, Kadhimiyah and Shuala.

“Life is getting back to normal in Sadr City,” said Ahmed Suhail, a resident of the sprawling district of some two million Shiites.

“Most shops are open and there are no militiamen in the streets,” Suhail said.

The curfew in Basra was also eased on Monday but the authorities said it would continue to apply at night.

An AFP correspondent in the southern port city said Iraqi troops were deployed in most parts of Basra and there were no reports of any new clashes overnight.

He said several shops were also open and people were queueing to buy household items.

Offices, colleges and schools remained closed, however.

The US military said on Monday its troops had killed 41 “criminals” in Baghdad, including 25 who died when a suspected mortar team was bombed.

The killings occurred on Sunday in eastern and northeastern Baghdad where US and Iraqi forces have been battling the Mahdi Army since Tuesday.

The deaths pushed the toll from six days of fighting to more than 320, at least 140 of them in Baghdad.

On Sunday, Sadr ordered his fighters off the streets while the government agreed not to pursue those involved in the fighting provided they stowed their weapons.

Sadr distanced himself from those “who carry weapons and target the government, the offices of the government and its parties” as he ordered his men to withdraw.

“We want the Iraqi people to stop this bloodshed and maintain Iraq’s independence and stability,” he said.

The fighting began on March 25 when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered his troops to attack Mahdi Army strongholds in Basra, the southern oil hub, which he said were infested by “lawless gunmen.”

The fighting quickly spread across other Shiite areas and flared in particular in Sadr City.

Maliki, himself a Shiite who has been directing security operations from inside Basra, said he hoped Sadr’s order would “contribute to the stability of the situation”.

“It is a step in the right direction,” he said.

A volley of rockets, meanwhile, smashed into Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone on Monday hitting at least five people, including an Iraqi army major and two American soldiers, a witness told AFP.

The Green Zone, a maze of blast-wall lined roads that once served as Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace complex, has been struck by waves of mortar and rocket fire since Sunday last week.