BAGHDAD, Iraq – An Iraqi delegation delivered a peace proposal to aides of terrorist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Najaf yesterday as explosions, gunfire, and an American air strike on the sprawling cemetery echoed across the holy city.

The delegation was kept waiting for three hours at the Imam Ali shrine, where some of Mr. al-Sadr’s fighters have holed up, but were not allowed to meet with the cleric and left Najaf after talking with his aides.

Mr. Al-Sadr did not show up because of the “heavy shelling from the planes and tanks of the U.S. forces,” said an aide, Ahmed al-Shaibany.

Both the mediators and Mr. al-Sadr’s deputies described their talks as positive. Mr. al-Shaibany said the delegation would return today to meet with Mr. al-Sadr himself.

Delegate Rajah Khozi said she hoped the group would be able to return today or Thursday, but there were no immediate plans for such a trip.

The peace mission was organized by the Iraqi National Conference, a gathering of more than 1,000 religious, political, and civic leaders that was extended late yesterday into a fourth day because of disagreements over how to elect a council that is to act as a watchdog over the interim government until elections in January.

The delegation’s peace initiative demanded that Mr. al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia disarm, leave the Imam Ali shrine, and become a political group in exchange for amnesty.

“This is not a negotiation. This is a friendly mission to convey the message of the National Conference,” said delegation head Hussein al-Sadr, a distant relative of the renegade Shiite Muslim cleric.

Al-Sadr aides said they welcomed the mission, but not the peace proposal.

“The demands of the committee are impossible. The shrine compound must be in the hands of the religious authorities. They are asking us to leave Najaf while we are the sons of Najaf,” said one aide, Sheik Ali Smeisim.

The delegation, which had planned to be in Najaf only for a day, flew back to Baghdad to return to the National Conference.

The fighting in Najaf, especially near the revered Imam Ali shrine, where Mr. al-Sadr’s rebels are holed up, has angered many among the country’s majority Shiite population and cast a pall over the conference, which had been intended to project an image of amity and inclusiveness on the road to democracy.

The meeting is being held under tight security and two nearby explosions rattled the meeting hall yesterday, slightly wounding a soldier and a civilian security guard, the military said.

Several miles away, a mortar round slammed into a busy Baghdad commercial district, killing seven people and wounding 47, officials said.

The blast charred cars and shattered the front of a barbershop on al-Rasheed street, leaving blood mixed with glass and metal shards on the road.

In the volatile city of Fallujah, an American warplane fired a missile at a house, killing two people, and injuring one, said Dr. Adel Mohammed Moustafa of Fallujah General Hospital. The American military had no immediate comment.

Clashes persisted even after the National Conference’s eight-member peace delegation – seven of them Shiites – arrived aboard a pair of American Army Black Hawk helicopters yesterday afternoon.