Baghdad  - Streets of Baghdad's Sadr City were calmer on Wednesday, after the Iraqi and US troops were deployed across the Shiite enclave, ending two months of violent clashes between Iraqi forces and militants of the so-called Mahdi Army.

For the first time since intense clashes broke out on March 25 between Iraqi forces and the Mahdi Army, loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi troops were seen moving around the district, standing at separate checkpoints and US troops were patrolling streets.

Violence appears to have dampened, while Iraqi forces continued their efforts to mop up the Mahdi army members and to uncover their weapon caches in the volatile district.

Last week, the al-Sadr political bloc and the United Iraqi Alliance, the main power in the ruling coalition, signed a ceasefire deal to end the fighting between al Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and Iraqi forces in its east Baghdad's stronghold.

The anti-US Shiite cleric ordered his followers to abide by the truce and end fighting.

Mahdi al-Saady, a resident in the Shiite enclave, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that he hopes the presence of Iraqi forces in Sadr City would provide security instead of being a "new cover for military and detention operations."

"Violence and military operations have destroyed our streets and made us lose many of our friends and loved ones for no reason," the 53-year-old Sadrist said.

He added: "The situation in the district is really unpleasant. Garbage and sewage are spreading in the streets and schools are closed."

Separately, a woman suicide bomber detonated her explosive belt in front of a location of the Awakening Council, killing two police officers and wounding another four, al-Iraqiya television reported.

The explosion occurred in the Ratab area of Anbar city, some 100 kilometres west of Baghdad.

Another three civilians were wounded when a bomb went off in Baghdad's Palestine street, witnesses told dpa. Nearby stores were also destroyed in the blast. (dpa)