BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s government has agreed a truce with the movement of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to end weeks of clashes in Baghdad between Shi’ite gunmen and security forces, a spokesman for the cleric said on Saturday.

KABUL (AFP) – Two foreign soldiers were killed in action in Afghanistan on Friday, military forces said, while more than a dozen Taliban-linked rebels were killed in a separate battle involving air strikes.

As of Friday, May 9, 2008, at least 427 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures May 3 at 10 a.m. EDT.