U.S. jets pounded suspected Shiite fighters' positions in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City on Monday, killing at least five people and wounding 46, as insurgents detonated a car bomb and fired rockets in separate attacks across the country targeting Iraq's beleaguered security forces. The U.S. military said the strikes in Sadr City, a hotbed of insurgents loyal to renegade Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, struck several "positively identified" rebel hideouts. Residents said explosions lit up the night sky for hours before dawn. Mangled vehicles, debris and shards of glass littered the streets. Dr. Qassem Saddam of the Imam Ali hospital in Sadr City said five people were killed and 40 were wounded _ including 15 women and nine children. At least two children wrapped in bloodstains bandages could be seen lying in hospital beds and one man suffered burns from head-to-toe. Lt. Col. Jim Hutton, a U.S. Army spokesman, said insurgents also fired three mortar rounds at a nearby U.S. Army base, but that the shells fell short and exploded in a civilian neighborhood. It was not immediately known if there any casualties. In Mosul, insurgents set off a car bomb as a seven-vehicle Iraqi National Guard patrol was passing by, killing at least four guardsmen and wounding three others, police said.
