A US air strike killed four people in eastern Baghdad overnight but police said fighting appeared to ease today after four days of clashes that have killed around 80 people.
The slum of Sadr City has been the focal point of fighting between black-masked Mehdi Army militiamen loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and security forces since Sunday.
"Sadr City looks quieter than in previous days although there is still sporadic gunfire," said a policeman in the slum. "There is movement in the streets. Some shops have reopened.
A roadside bomb killed a US soldier in central Baghdad overnight, raising the US military death toll in Iraq to 20 for April, putting this month on track to be the deadliest for American soldiers since September.
The US military said a helicopter fired two Hellfire missiles late on Wednesday at gunmen who attacked a joint US-Iraqi security station in Sadr City, killing four.
But Iraqi police and hospital officials said two of the dead were young boys.
The fighting, which was sparked late last month when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki launched a crackdown on Sadr's militia in the southern city of Basra, has coloured an election-year debate in Washington over how fast to withdraw US troops.
The Iraqi military announced late last night it planned to lift a two-week old vehicle blockade in Sadr City on Saturday.
The blockade has prevented cars from entering or leaving the eastern Baghdad district of two million people, leading to piled up rubbish, food and medicine shortages, and what residents have described as a sense of claustrophobia.
A Baghdad-wide vehicle ban was imposed yesterday to prevent a violent spread of unrest on the fifth anniversary of the capital's fall to US troops.
Despite that, some 23 people were killed in Sadr City clashes, Iraqi security sources said, and the United States announced the deaths of five more US soldiers.
US military deaths have averaged roughly one a day over the past six months, but the number has spiked in April.
Mr Maliki threatened this week to bar Sadr's movement from the political process in Iraq if the cleric refused to disband his militia.
Sadr backed Maliki's rise to power in 2006 but split with the prime minister a year ago when Mr Maliki rebuffed demands to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops.