Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has offered to disband his militia if the highest Shia religious authority demands it.
The news came on the day Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who launched a crackdown on the militia late last month, ordered the Mehdi Army to disband or Sadr's followers would be excluded from Iraqi political life.
Senior Sadr aide Hassan Zargani said Sadr would seek rulings from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shia cleric, as well as senior Shia clergy based in Iran, on whether to dissolve the Mehdi Army, and would obey their orders.
"If they order the Mehdi Army to disband, Moqtada al-Sadr and the Sadr movement will obey the orders of the religious leaders," Zargani told Reuters from neighboring Iran, where US officials say Sadr has spent most of the past year.
That puts the spotlight on the reclusive Sistani, 77, a cleric revered by all of Iraq's Shia factions and whose edicts carry the force of Islamic law.
Sistani, who almost never leaves his house in Najaf, has intervened in Iraqi politics only a handful of times but on each occasion his rulings have been decisive.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said he could not comment on the statement by Sadr's aide. Sistani's spokesman, Hamed al-Khafaf, declined to comment.
The developments come at a pivotal time, two days before Sadr has called a million followers onto the streets for anti-American demonstrations and one day before the top US officials in Iraqi are due to brief Congress on progress.
Meanwhile, medical sources said a further nine people died and more than 60 were wounded overnight, after 25 people were killed and more than 90 were wounded in yesterday's fighting.
The US military announced the deaths of two more US soldiers, bringing yesterday's day's toll to seven, one of the deadliest days for Americans in months.
They include two US soldiers killed by mortars or rockets in the Green Zone compound.