US attempts to negotiate entry into Sadr City

From Juan Cole's website

Al-Hayat also says that US officers met on Thursday with clan elders and Sadrist leaders in largely Shiite Sadr City [East Baghdad]in an attempt to find a way for the extra US troops to enter Sadr City peacefully. The US rejected the suggested that popular committees participate in sweeps and arrests. The talks were aimed at defusing tensions between the Mahdi Army and the US military and avoiding a confrontation.

The deputy governor (Ibrahim Hasan) of Diyala province to the east and northeast of Baghdad admitted that Sunni Arab religious radicals were in control of many of the province's cities and towns, and that the Iraqi government has almost no presence in the cities of Baquba and Muqdadiyah. He said that the security situation was very bad, and called on American and Iraqi military forces to intervene immediately to save the people from ethnic cleansing operations. He is said to want Diyala province added into the new security plan (which concentrates on Baghdad and al-Anbar province.

The Provincial Council had fired the old governor of Diyala and expelled 1500 policemen and army soldiers after gunmen from "al-Qaeda" occupied the governor's mansion.