Guerrilla attacks prompted the US military to close highways North and South of Baghdad on Saturday, soon after US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to stamp out violence in Iraq. As if to mock them, insurgents paraded a US soldier who was captured in an attack on a road convoy last week.But guns fell silent in Falluja, where air strikes and clashes have punctuated a shaky truce between US Marines and Sunni guerrillas. The sudden halt to fighting followed peace talks on Friday in which senior civilian and military representatives of Iraq’s US-led administration took part for the first time. A senior US official said talks would resume at noon on Saturday.A videotape aired by the Arab TV channel Al Jazeera showed US Private Keith Matthew Maupin held by masked gunmen. He was sitting on the floor wearing military fatigues.‘‘Mujahideen have succeeded in taking a US soldier prisoner.and he will be treated in the Islamic tradition of treating prisoners and he is in good health,’’ a guerrilla said. The US military announced the indefinite closure of parts of Highways One and Eight, North and South of Baghdad, saying guerrilla attacks had made t hem unsafe. ‘‘The highways are damaged and dangerous,’’ a statement said. ‘‘If civilians drive on the closed section of the highways they may be engaged with deadly force.’’ Blair said at a joint news conference with Bush after talks at the White House that they would stamp out a rebellion launched this month by radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr and also win a long-running battle against Sunni guerrillas. — (Reuters)
