Iraqi children walk past the bullet-riddled windshield of a vehicle after a gunbattle in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. Iraqi and U.S. forces, trying to catch extremists suspected of running torture cells, raided a Shiite militia stronghold of Baghdad on Monday, triggering a gunbattle that left three people dead and 12 injured.

Baghdad, Iraq ? Iraq’s prime minister sharply criticized a U.S.-Iraqi attack Monday on a Shiite militia stronghold in Baghdad, breaking with his American partners on security tactics as the United States launches a major operation to secure the capital.

More than 30 people were killed or found dead Monday, including 10 paramilitary commandos slain when a suicide driver detonated a truck at the regional headquarters of the Shiite-led Interior Ministry police in a mostly Sunni city north of Baghdad.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s criticism followed a pre-dawn air and ground attack on an area of Sadr City, stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.

Police said three people, including a woman and a child, were killed in the raid, which the U.S. command said was aimed at “individuals involved in punishment and torture cell activities.”

One U.S. soldier was wounded, the U.S. said.

The military said early today that an American soldier died Sunday of wounds suffered in action in Anbar province west of Baghdad. No further details were released, including when the fighting occurred.

Al-Maliki, a Shiite, said he was “very angered and pained” by the operation, warning that it could undermine his efforts toward national reconciliation.

“Reconciliation cannot go hand in hand with operations that violate the rights of citizens this way,” al-Maliki said in a statement on government television. “This operation used weapons that are unreasonable to detain someone – like using planes.”

He apologized to the Iraqi people for the operation and said “this won’t happen again.”