U.S. and Iraqi troops backed by helicopters Monday killed three civilians in the slum of Sadr City 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 Buratha mosque in northern Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding six others, police were quoted as saying by the Associated Press. 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.
