DUBAI, April 24 (Reuters) - The United States and Iraq's prime minister do not share the same views over a controversial wall being built around a Sunni district in Baghdad, the head of U.S. Central Command Admiral William Fallon said on Tuesday.

Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki said on Sunday that he had ordered the U.S. military to stop work on a 12-foot (3.6-metre) high barrier around the Sunni neighbourhood of Adhamiya, part of a new American military tactic to stop bombings.

"There is a conflict in opinions," the official United Arab Emirates news agency WAM quoted Fallon as telling a news conference in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi.

"A number of possible deadly bombings have actually been foiled and the lives of many innocent people have been saved as many car bombs exploded near the concrete barriers erected in several parts of the Iraqi capital," he added in remarks translated into Arabic.

U.S. troops have begun walling off some flashpoint neighbourhoods in Baghdad with concrete barriers, but the move has drawn sharp criticism from some Sunni and Shi'ite political parties.

Tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops have been deployed in Baghdad in a bid to curb rampant sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands in the past year.

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