The Iraqi Government announced a deal to bring Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr back into the political fold yesterday, even as violence spread farther across the country.

The populist Shia cleric’s six Cabinet ministers and 30 MPs ended their boycott of government and parliamentary activities, begun last November, when they protested at a meeting between Nouri alMaliki, the Prime Minister, and President Bush in Jordan.

Five US soldies were killed and three wounded in an attack on a command centre in Karbala, bringing the American weekend death toll to 19, the third-highest since the war began in March 2003. Sunni insurgents claimed to have shot down a Black Hawk helicopter on Saturday, killing 12, but the US said that the cause had not yet been determined.

The violence came as more than 3,000 US paratroops arrived in Baghdad to take part in the new Baghdad security plan with which Mr al-Maliki hopes to restore order to the capital. The 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division is the first of five to be deployed alongside nine Iraqi brigades in Baghdad. As the US death toll reached 3,044 an opinion poll by Newsweek magazine found 68 per cent of respondents opposed to the decision by President Bush to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq, with 26 per cent in support.

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