Iraqi Marketplace Bomb Kills 24
35 Others Are Injured, Dozens More Killed In Other Attacks
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Play CBS Video Video Shiites Battle With Iraqi Army Iraq's government said 73 people died in a battle between the Iraqi army and Shiite militiamen in a town south of Baghdad. Mark Strassmann has more.
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Aftermath of bomb blast near Shurja main market, Baghdad, Iraq, Aug. 30, 2006. (AP /APTN)
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Nidah Street in central Baghdad, following a bombing on Aug. 30, 2006. (AP /APTN)
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Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia men look at their damaged building after mortar attack, in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday Aug. 29, 2006. (AP Photo/Adam Hadei)
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An Iraqi boy walks past a damaged car in a roadside bomb, in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday Aug. 28, 2006. (AP Photo/ Karim Kadim)
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Iraqi policeman console the brother of their colleague, who was killed in a roadside bomb, as he mourns over his body in a coffin, in Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday Aug. 29, 2006. (AP Photo/Yahya Ahmed)
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"Life is back to normal, the shops are open and Iraqi police and soldiers are deployed everywhere in Diwaniyah," said police Lt. Raid Jabir, contacted by telephone.
Leaders of the tribes to which the dead combatants belonged held reconciliation talks Tuesday to prevent retaliatory attacks, Jabir said.
Coalition helicopters were flying over the area on Tuesday, said Sheik Abdul-Razq al-Nidawi al-Sadr representative in Diwaniyah.
Abbas Gahat, a grocer in Diwaniyah reached by telephone, said all shops were open in the city, although some were damaged. "Life is back to normal as if nothing took place," he said.
Jabir said the police and Iraqi army had deployed throughout the city and the militiamen had withdrawn from all the areas they had seized.
The violence ended after the provincial governor, accompanied by eight provincial council members, traveled to the holy city of Najaf, west of Diwaniyah, to meet with al-Sadr.
Al-Sadr's influence has gradually been increasing in Shiite-dominated Diwaniyah. He is already popular in large parts of southern Iraq, particularly in Najaf and the surrounding area. He also wields considerable influence in some areas of Baghdad, especially in the slum of Sadr City.
The Mahdi Army twice confronted U.S. forces in 2004. Al-Sadr's movement holds 30 of the 275 seats in parliament and five Cabinet posts, and the cleric's backing had helped al-Maliki win the top job earlier this year.
Many Sunnis have expressed disappointment that al-Maliki has not moved to curb Shiite militias, especially the Mahdi Army.
American forces also have been wary of confronting the militia because of al-Sadr's influence over the government and the Shiites, who are in a majority in Iraq.
In the town of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, three mortar shells, two rocket-propelled grenades and a bomb exploded at an al-Sadr office almost simultaneously, killing two guards and destroying the building, Diyala Province police in the city said. Baqouba is ethnically mixed but has a Sunni majority.
It was not immediately clear whether there was any connection to the fighting in Diwaniyah.
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