British and US forces in Iraq have clashed with armed supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia leader.

At least five people were killed in a pre-dawn raid in the Sadr City neighbourhood of Baghdad on Saturday, while in the southern city of Basra "a number" of al-Mahdi army fighters died in an air strike.

The Basra air strike came after a British military base in the city came under sustained attack from men armed with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machineguns.

British forces attacked one al-Mahdi army position with a fighter jet but had no immediate word on casualties.

Figures disputed

Captain Hassan Ali of the Iraqi police said the raid killed three people and wounded seven.

However, Adnan Sailawi, an al-Sadr supporter, said eight people were killed and 22 wounded when a British aircraft attacked a group of men outside a Shia prayer hall.

Major David Gell, a British military spokesman, said that the attacks were believed to be in retaliation for the killing of the senior al-Mahdi army commander in the city on Friday.

The attacks came shortly after al-Sadr reappeared from a four-month absence to deliver a Friday sermon calling for national reconciliation and the departure of US and British forces.

Rare talks between the US and Iranian ambassadors to Iraq on how to stabilise the country are also scheduled for Monday.

'Iranian proxy' held

The US military said Saturday's raid in Baghdad resulted in the capture of a man "suspected of ... acting as a proxy for an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps officer" and smuggling sophisticated explosive devices to local fighters.

The five men were killed when an air strike hit a column of nine vehicles that were positioning themselves to ambush US and Iraqi troops, the military said in a statement.

However, residents and police rejected the US account saying the cars had been hit while they were queuing at a petrol station.

A military official said several houses were destroyed and six vehicles incinerated, in the raid.

More US deaths

Eight more US soldiers have been killed in five previously unreported attacks in different areas of Iraq over the past four days, the US military said on Saturday.

In the worst of the latest attacks, three soldiers were killed and another two were wounded when their patrol was hit by an explosion in Salahaddin province, north of Baghdad, on Saturday.

Another two soldiers were killed and three were wounded by a roadside bomb east of Baghdad, the military said.

In other attacks, one soldier was killed and two were wounded by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad on Saturday.

Another soldier was killed and three more were wounded in Taji, 20km north of Baghdad, on Friday, the military said.

A US marine was also killed in western province of Anbar on Saturday.

PHOTO CAPTION

Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr speaks to supporters at Friday prayers at his local mosque in Kufa, 25 May 2007.

Al-Jazeera (summarized)