Hardline Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Thursday refused to hold talks with Iraqi lawmakers who had gone to Iran in a bid to end the clashes between his fighters and troops, an aide told AFP.
"Moqtada al-Sadr did not permit his leaders to meet the Iraqi delegation," said Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi, the cleric's spokesman in the central holy city of Najaf.
"Sadr insists that the crisis can be solved only through a parliamentary initiative backed by president Jalal Talabani and speaker Mahmud Mashhadani."
Obeidi did not elaborate, but Talabani has been holding talks with Sadrists to resolve the crisis.
Obeidi earlier said a group of Iraqi Shiite MPs had travelled to Iran for talks with Sadr. He said the group was led deputy parliament speaker Sheikh Khalid al-Attiya.
That was the first acknowledgement that the cleric is in Iran, although it is still not clear whether he is the capital, Tehran, or the holy city of Qom.
Shiite militiamen, mainly from Sadr's Mahdi Army, have fought fierce street battles with US and Iraqi forces since late March in Baghdad's Sadr City, the cleric's bastion in the capital.
The firefights fuelled the overall bloodshed in April, with at least 1,073 people killed across the country at a time when the US military's toll also hit a seven-month high.
Overnight clashes in Sadr City between the Americans and Shiite militiamen left another eight people dead, including two children, officials said. The military said it killed eight militants.
According to data collected by the interior, health and defence ministries and made available to AFP, 966 civilians were killed in April, as were 69 police officers and 38 soldiers.
April's toll was marginally lower than the 1,082 in March.
Combined figures obtained by AFP from the three ministries showed that 1,745 civilians, 159 policemen and 104 soldiers were wounded in April.
The April toll maintains the trend of rising violence that in March reversed a gradual decline seen from last June. It follows 721 killed in February, 541 in January, 568 in December, 606 in November, 887 in October, 917 in September and 1,856 in August.
April was also the deadliest month for the US military since last September.
Fifty-one troops were killed in April, according to independent website www.icasualties.org based on the deaths already announced by the military.
These brought to 4,063 the number of US troops killed since the March 2003 invasion.
Twenty-three of the American soldiers killed in April died in the Baghdad battles with Shiite militiamen.
The fighting between security forces and Shiite fighters erupted in the southern city of Basra on March 25, and spread quickly to other Shiite areas of Iraq, particularly Sadr City.
On Thursday, US Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover said troops "positively identified" militiamen and killed eight in separate incidents overnight.
He said the militants are "knowingly placing innocent Iraqis in harm's way."
In a separate statement, the military said it also killed a known "Iranian-sponsored Special Groups leader" in an air strike in Sadr City on Thursday.
It did not offer details.
Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki has accused militias of using civilians as "human shields" in attacks on security forces.
"Criminals and lawless gangs are using human shields in Sadr City ... They are following the steps of the Baathist regime," he said on Wednesday.
"They are trying to gain sympathy but they are using the lies and the values of the former regime" of executed dictator Saddam Hussein.
The US military says gunmen have been shooting at troops from rooftops, alleyways and houses, resulting in firefights in which civilians are often killed.
"The prime minister is disconnected from the realities on the ground. He lives in the Green Zone and the reports he receives from his advisers are not reliable," said Salah al-Igaili, a lawmaker from Sadr's political bloc told reporters.
"The Sadr movement wants to settle the crisis through dialogue. It calls for the army and security forces to halt the shedding of blood."
Showing pictures of wounded women and children, he accused the US forces of killing "children, old men and women" in Sadr City.
Meanwhile, a car bomb in central Baghdad on Thursday killed at least eight people and wounded 21, security officials said. It exploded in Karrada neighbourhood's Al-Sina'a Street as a US military patrol passed, they said.
