BAGHDAD, Iraq — A U.S. helicopter fired rockets into a crowded Shiite neighborhood of eastern Baghdad today, killing a young woman, after the aircraft was fired on, the U.S. command said. The military also said five U.S. troops died in separate attacks.

A roadside bomb blast killed three U.S. soldiers south of Baghdad on Wednesday, while a fourth soldier died the same day from wounds sustained in a small-arms fire attack in the capital's southwest, the military said. A U.S. Marine was fatally wounded Wednesday during combat near the western city of Fallujah.

The deaths were the first among U.S. personnel since Jan. 28 and took the total of U.S. military fatalities to 2,247 since the war began in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Today's early morning attack in the vast eastern Baghdad area of Sadr City damaged several houses and cars, and both residents and Shiite politicians condemned the U.S. attack as reckless and provocative.

The U.S. military said the exchange of fire took place at about 1 a.m. as its troops were pursuing a "known terrorist associated with Ansar al-Sunnah," a Sunni militant group that has claimed responsibility for suicide attacks and beheadings.

"As troops were leaving the area in a U.S. military helicopter, men on a nearby rooftop began firing at the aircraft," said military spokesman Sgt. Stacy Simon. "The helicopter returned fire with guns and rockets."

The military had no details on casualties, but Sadr City resident Abdul-Hussein Shanoof said his 20-year-old daughter, Ikhlas Abdul-Hussein, was killed. Shanoof was also wounded, along with another woman and a 2-year-old child.

Footage showed Shanoof's house with a large hole blasted through his roof and rubble scattered inside.

U.S. soldiers detained two unidentified people before the attack inside Sadr City, the power base of radical anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The area was the scene of fierce clashes between Shiite militiamen and American forces in 2004 through to early 2005.

But American forces have been recently holding up the neighborhood as a model of improving relations between the U.S. military and the Iraqi community.

Transport Minister Salam al-Maliki, an al-Sadr supporter, condemned the U.S. attack and demanded compensation for victims.

"These military operations aim at weakening the supporters of the Sadrist movement, are considered provocative and represent a clear violation against the security situation in the country," al-Maliki told The Associated Press.

The attack came as neither Saddam Hussein nor any of his seven co-defendants attended today's session of the trial to protest the new chief judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman. The eight are being accused of involvement in the 1982 killings of more than 140 Shiite Muslims in Dujail, north of Baghdad. The session lasted just under two hours and was adjourned until Feb. 13.