U.S. and Iraqi troops backed by helicopters killed three civilians in the Shiite slum of Sadr City on Monday in a pre-dawn raid on the home of a suspected militia leader, police and residents said.Ground forces searched four houses but failed to find the suspect, U.S. spokesman Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl said. He identified the suspect only as a "a criminal militia special group commander," a term associated with splinter factions of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.
Meanwhile, a bomb blew up around noon near the Shiite Buratha mosque in northern Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding five others, police said.
The U.S. command also announced that a U.S. soldier, whose patrol in the Kirkuk area was hit with rockets on Sunday, had died from injuries sustained in the attack. Further details were not immediately available.
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