BAGHDAD, Iraq - Bombs exploded outside five churches in Baghdad and mortar rounds hit near a hospital and a hotel frequented by foreigners, as U.S. forces loosened a cordon around the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah after several days of clashes with rebels there.

Meanwhile Saturday, the U.S. military said the deadline for Shiite militiamen to turn in their weapons in the Baghdad district of Sadr City had been extended for two days. Friday had been the deadline for militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to exchange guns for cash under a deal to end weeks of fighting with U.S. troops there.

Once the handover is complete, the U.S. military will verify that no major weapons caches remain and Iraqi forces will assume responsibility for security in Sadr City. The Americans hope the deal will enable them to focus on the more dangerous Sunni Muslim insurgency.

But over the last couple of days their fears have been more immediate: that like last year, insurgents will ratchet up violence in timing with Ramadan, which Iraqi Sunni Muslims and many Shiites began on Friday. Other Iraqi Shiites start fasting Saturday.

In Fallujah, the center of the Sunni insurgency, residents said the Americans had relaxed a cordon they threw up around the city after stepped up air and ground attacks this week against insurgents, including those loyal to terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

U.S. troops were allowing residents to leave the city through the northern exit and people were walking freely about the streets Saturday, residents said.

U.S. jets and artillery had pounded targets in the southern and eastern part of Fallujah around sundown Friday as residents were taking the traditional meal that breaks the daily fast during Ramadan.

One resident, Salah Abd, said American troops had sealed off major roads out of the city, 40 miles west of Baghdad, preventing residents from leaving.

The attacks began Thursday after peace talks between the Iraqi officials and city leaders broke down over the government's demand that they hand over terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, believed responsible for suicide bombings and beheading foreign hostages.

Khaled al-Jumeili, an Islamic cleric who served as the city's top negotiator in the talks, was arrested as he left a mosque after Friday prayers in a village about 10 miles south of Fallujah, witnesses said. There was no confirmation from U.S. authorities.

Fallujah fell under control of radical clerics and their armed mujahedeen fighters after the Marines lifted their three-week siege of the city in April.

On Friday, the Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni group with ties to some insurgents, called upon political parties to withdraw from the government to protest bloodshed in Fallujah, Samarra and other cities.

In a separate statement read Friday in Sunni mosques in Baghdad and elsewhere, Fallujah clerics threatened a civil disobedience campaign across the country if the Americans try to overrun the city.

The clerics said if civil disobedience were not enough to stop a U.S. assault, they would proclaim a jihad, or holy war, against all U.S. and multinational forces "as well as those collaborating with them."

They insisted that the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi was not in Fallujah, claiming his alleged presence "is a lie just like the weapons of mass destruction lie."

In the Baghdad violence, a mortar round exploded in the garden of the Ibn al-Betar hospital, killing one person. Officials said the blast at the hospital could have been far worse - the building was under renovation at the time and there were no patients there.

Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman of the Interior Ministry said a mortar round hit the parking lot of al-Mansour Hotel, where some foreign journalists and diplomats stay. There were no reports of casualties there.

The bombs at the churches also hurt no one, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said. The explosions rang out in quick succession over an hour and half starting at 4:00 a.m., said ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman.

Abdul-Rahman said the churches all had some exterior damage, with windows blown out.