Baghdad, Iraq ? American-led forces battled gunmen in Sadr City during two rare forays into the vast Shiite Muslim slum on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people and drawing a swift rebuke from Iraq’s prime minister. The American troops, who called in air strikes as they came under attack, were searching for a kidnapped U.S. soldier and hunting for a Shiite death squad leader, authorities said.

The U.S. military said in a statement that the raid had been authorized by the Iraqi government. But Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, himself a Shiite, quickly renounced the operation, telling reporters at a news conference that it was an example of a continuing lack of coordination between Iraqi and American-led troops.

“We are going to request some explanations from the multinational forces to prevent a similar incident, and to ensure coordination with the Iraqi security forces,” al-Maliki said.

The prime minister distanced himself further from the U.S. by refuting talk this week by President Bush and his ambassador to Iraq of the establishment of timelines for the Iraqi government to solve some of the country’s most intractable issues, including how to disarm militias, de-Baathification and revenue sharing.

“This government is a one of popular will and national unity, and it is nobody’s right to put timetables before it,” al-Maliki said, suggesting such efforts have more to do with the upcoming American midterm elections than with the situation on the ground in Iraq.

Al-Maliki also went out of his way to praise the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, for seemingly rejecting violence against other Muslims. Al-Sadr has not renounced killing American troops and U.S. commanders in Iraq have expressed a belief that al-Sadr’s militia, the al-Mahdi Army, is behind most attacks against U.S. troops.

While al-Maliki has been under pressure from the U.S. to rein in Shiite militias, and notably the al-Mahdi Army, the prime minister relies on al-Sadr for political support. In addition to controlling the largest Shiite militia in Iraq, al-Sadr also controls 30 seats in parliament.

In Wednesday’s raid on Sadr City, troops set out to capture a “top illegal armed group commander directing widespread death-squad activity throughout eastern Baghdad,” the U.S. military said in a statement. It was unclear whether they caught the cell leader.