A US air strike in Baghdad's Sadr City district killed at least three people today as US-led forces hunted for death squads and a kidnapped US soldier.
An Iraqi Health Ministry spokesman said the dead included a six-month-old infant and that up to 50 people had been wounded.
The Interior Ministry said US and Iraqi forces raided the sprawling slum suburb of about two million at 5.00am local time, sparking clashes with militiamen loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Yesterday, US-led Iraqi special forces raided a group in Sadr City suspected of kidnapping, torturing and murdering Iraqi civilians and soldiers.
Recent raids by US forces in the area have sparked tensions with Shia Muslim Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's coalition government.
US and Iraqi forces have carried out several raids and air strikes on Sadr City in recent weeks in their hunt for sectarian death squads blamed for kidnappings and killings that have plagued the capital and raised the spectre of civil war.
The US military has also launched a massive search for the missing soldier, an American of Iraqi descent who was kidnapped on last month after going to visit his Iraqi wife and relatives outside the safety of the heavily fortified Green Zone.
The soldier's family say he was taken by Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, a nationwide movement that dominates Sadr City.