Blast kills 33 in Shiite slum, while U.S. monthly death toll in Iraq tops 100

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A bomb tore through food stalls and kiosks in a sprawling Shiite slum Monday, killing at least 33 people, while the U.S. military's death toll for the month of October reached 101.\nThe 6:15 a.m. explosion in Sadr City targeted poor Shiites who gather there each morning hoping for jobs as construction workers. At least 59 people were wounded, said police Maj. Hashim al-Yasiri.\nNew details emerged about a U.S. soldier who disappeared last week, sparking a massive manhunt. A woman claiming to be his mother-in-law said Monday that the soldier was married to a Baghdad college student and was with the young woman and her family when hooded gunmen handcuffed and threw him in the back seat of a white Mercedes. The marriage would violate military regulations.\nU.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley made an unannounced visit to Baghdad, where he met with his Iraqi counterpart, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for talks on military and political coordination, the government said.\nA commission to coordinate U.S.-Iraqi relations, especially military activity, was established in a video conference Saturday between President Bush and al-Maliki, who has made critical statements about U.S. policy in the past week.\n"The two sides discussed the work of the committee, which was agreed to between the prime minister and the American president and is designed to coordinate development of the Iraqi security forces, expedite military training, reconciliation among Iraqis and the war against terrorism," the Iraqi government statement said.\nGordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council, said Hadley's visit was not a fence-mending effort to deal with strains between Washington and Baghdad. "Absolutely not," Johndroe said. "This is a long-planned trip to get a firsthand report of the situation on the ground from the political, economic and security fronts."\nThe area of Monday's attack, a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has seen repeated bombings by suspected al-Qaida fighters seeking to incite Shiite revenge attacks and drag Iraq into a civil war.\nAli Abdul-Ridha, being treated for head and shoulder wounds at a hospital, said he was waiting for a job with his brother and about 100 others when he heard a massive explosion and "lost sight of everything."\nThe U.S. and Iraqi military have kept a tight cordon around Sadr City since a raid last week in search of an alleged Shiite death squad leader, who was not found.\nAbdul-Ridha said the area had been exposed to attack because U.S. and Iraqi forces had driven Mahdi fighters who usually provide protection into hiding.\n"That forced Mahdi Army members, who were patrolling the streets, to vanish," Abdul-Ridha, 41, said from his bed in al-Sadr Hospital.\nFalih Jabar, a 37-year-old father of two boys, said the Mahdi Army was responsible for provoking extremists to attack civilians in the neighborhood of 2.5 million people.