BAGHDAD (AP):

From south and north, Iraq's Kurdish region felt pressure from two sides yesterday as saboteurs bombed a vital bridge link to Baghdad, and Turkish troops stood arrayed to the north for a possible cross-border strike, a move Iraq's Prime Minister warned against.

Battleground

"We won't allow it to be turned into a battleground," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said yesterday of the relatively peaceful Iraqi north, a haven for anti-Turkish Kurdish guerrillas.

Sectarian violence between Sunni and Sh i' ite Muslims raged on in Iraq's centre, meanwhile, as hours of mortar barrages killed eight people in a Sunni neighbourhood of Baghdad that is surrounded by Sh i' ites. A prominent Sunni cleric was gunned down on a Baghdad street.

A series of explosions also was heard in Baghdad late Saturday and state-run Iraqiya television reported that U.S. warplanes were bombarding Habibiyah, a Shiite area on the edge of the Mahdi Army militia stronghold of Sadr City. The U.S. military, which has been searching for five British citizens in the area, said it was looking into the report.

The U.S. casualty toll mounted for May, third-deadliest month for Americans in the four-year-old war, as a soldier wounded in a roadside bomb blast in Baghdad last Wednesday was reported to have died of his wounds, raising the month's death toll to at least 127.