In Najaf, police spokesman Col. Ali Jiryo said cars were banned from entering the city for 24 hours starting 8 p.m. Sunday. Buses were to be at all entrances of the city to transport arriving demonstrators or other visitors to the city center. Najaf residents would be allowed to drive, he said.

Hours after the Mahmoudiya bombing, five charred bodies littered a courtyard. Most of the dead were mechanics in the repair shops, officials said. The hospital was slightly damaged by shrapnel. Many of the victims were in their homes at the time of the blast, 20 miles south of Baghdad.

While religious-based killings are lower in Baghdad in the eighth week of the security crackdown, Sunni insurgents - including al-Qaida in Iraq - and Shiite militia fighters have shifted their battleground to regions like Baqouba, the Diyala province capital northeast of Baghdad.

At least 62 bodies - execution victims who were tortured - were found in or near Baqouba last week alone.

In a rural area just east of Baghdad, three mortar rounds crashed into houses and six people were taken to a hospital in Sadr City with breathing troubles from a possible chemical agent, police said.

Doctors said the victims' faces turned yellow and they were unable to open their eyes. One hospital official said the chemical was chlorine, although such an effect was unlikely given the small amount of the chemical that could be fitted into the shells.

U.S. forces captured a senior al-Qaida leader and two others in a raid Sunday morning in Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

The al-Qaida figure was identified as "the gatekeeper to the al-Qaida emir of Baghdad" and was linked to several car bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital, the military said in a statement, without naming the captive.

Iraqis streamed toward Najaf for Monday's 4th anniversary demonstration. Witnesses said thousands of residents in Baghdad's largest Shiite slum, Sadr City, boarded buses and minivans Sunday for Najaf.

"The faithful should participate in a demonstration in Najaf on April 9, demanding that the occupiers withdraw from our lands. They should carry or wear Iraqi flags," al-Sadr's office said.

On Sunday, Iraqi flags flew from most houses and shops in Sadr City. Drivers and motorcyclists affixed them to their vehicles. Police escorted convoys of pickup trucks overflowing with young boys waving Iraqi flags, en route to Najaf.

An Iraqi flag was hoisted over a military base in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, as Iraqi troops took control of the facility Sunday from British forces. The Shatt al-Arab base is the second to be transferred to Iraqi control in Basra over the past month.

1

2