BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi troops backed by tanks tightened their grip on Baghdad's Shiite stronghold of Sadr City on Thursday after a truce ended weeks of deadly street fighting between US troops and militiamen.

Thousands of soldiers in tanks, armoured cars and trucks moved deep into the impoverished district on the northeastern edge of Baghdad, witnesses said.

Convoys of Soviet-era tanks and armoured cars were seen rumbling along dusty and crowded streets and moving into narrow alleyways, meeting no resistance from the anti-American Mahdi Army militia which had controlled the area.

Children were seen offering water to soldiers in the scorching summer heat.

There were similar scenes on Tuesday when troops made their initial foray into Sadr City which had been off limits to them for two months while US troops battled the Mahdi Army of firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The Sadrists welcomed the deployment of the Iraqi troops in line with the truce but said they do not want any US troops in Sadr City.

Hundreds of people were killed in the fighting which erupted in March after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki launched a crackdown against rival Shiite militias in the main southern port and oil hub of Basra.

Maliki on Thursday met Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric in the country in the central shrine city of Najaf, the government said.

"When politicians come to see Sayed Sistani, he always recommends that the state should impose its authority and that arms should only be in the hands of the authorities to defend the downtrodden," said the premier who is himself a Shiite.

The elderly and fragile Sistani shuns the limelight, never speaks with the press and rarely makes public appearances. As is customary, there was no comment from his office on the premier's visit.

The Basra offensive ordered by Maliki spread to Sadr City where much of the violence centred around a huge concrete wall the Americans were building to block off two thirds of the geometrically designed city.

The Americans and Iraqi troops were on the southern one-third while the rest was controlled by the Mahdi militia which had also demanded a halt to the construction that divided the local community.

On Thursday the wall still remained, although one section had been removed to allow pedestrians free movement.

"I have been here now for three days," said an Iraqi army captain seeking the shade of a long-disused traffic police booth at Al-Quds, Sector Nine which saw heavy fighting. "It is quiet. No incidents since we came here."

A lone Iraqi soldier manned the opening in the 4.5-metre- (15-feet-) high blast wall running virtually the entire length of Al-Quds street.

However four Iraqi tanks were positioned on either side of the opening while sharpshooters on nearby rooftops monitored the traffic below.

The US military said Iraqi soldiers found numerous home-made bombs and other munitions during the initial stages of "Operation Peace" in Sadr City on Tuesday when they first made a token advance into Mahdi Army territory.

The US military also effectively walled off the rest of Sadr City to prevent the free flow of residents from the area to other Shiite neighbourhoods where the American military still has a presence along with Iraqi security forces.

Eleven suspected "special group criminals" -- a euphemism for militia the US says were trained by Iranian groups -- were killed by American troops just outside Sadr City on Wednesday.

As the guns remained silent on Thursday, residents slowly returned to the frontline area to salvage what was left of their bombed-out homes and businesses.

Carpenter brothers Rassoul and Mohaith Hussain were there to salvage their workshop facing the wall.

"We had no work for two months because of the fighting," Mohaith said. "We hope the ceasefire will hold and we will have peace, inshallah (God willing)."

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