Fallujah, Iraq — Fighting spreads in Iraq; mosque hit in Fallujah
U.S. marines in the third day of a battle to pacify this Sunni Muslim city fired a rocket and dropped a 500-pound, laser-guided bomb on a mosque compound Wednesday.
Witnesses said as many as 40 people were killed in the attack.
Elsewhere, Shiite-inspired violence spread to key cities in Iraq.
Sunni insurgents guard the streets of Fallujah, Iraq, on Wednesday. At least 60 Iraqis were reported killed. (Muhammed Muheisen/AP)
The fighting in Fallujah and neighbouring Ramadi has killed 15 marines since Monday and was part of an intensified uprising involving both Sunnis and Shiites that now stretches from Kirkuk in the north to the far south.
Marines waged a six-hour battle around the mosque with the militants holed up inside before a Cobra helicopter fired a Hellfire missile at the base of its minaret, and an F-16 dropped the bomb, said Lieutenant-Colonel Brennan Byrne said.
The fight began when a marine vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from the mosque, wounding five men, Col. Byrne said. A large U.S. force converged on the mosque.
Witnesses said the strike came as worshippers had gathered for afternoon prayers.
An Associated Press reporter saw cars ferrying the dead and wounded from the Abdul-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque. Witnesses said part of a wall surrounding the mosque compound was destroyed but the main building was not damaged.
In Baghdad, Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt told CNN that from photos of the mosque he had seen, "the actual mosque structure itself" was not damaged.
"It is a holy place, there is no doubt about it," Gen. Kimmitt added. "It has a special status under the Geneva Convention that it can't be attacked.
"However, it can be attacked when there is a military necessity brought on by the fact that the enemy is storing weapons, using weapons, inciting violence and executing violence from its grounds," he said.
Temporary hospitals were set up in private homes to treat the wounded and prepare the dead for burial. There was no immediate confirmation of the number of dead.
Col. Byrne said the marines control about a quarter of Fallujah.
U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said forces launched the operation in Fallujah to capture insurgents involved in anti-American attacks, including those in which the bodies of four civilians were mutilated and burned last week. He said the troops had pictures and names of those involved and were not attacking the town as a whole.
But militants, who have wide support among the population, dug in and fiercely resisted the U.S. raids into the city centre and attacked the troops encircling the city of 200,000. The intensity of the resistance apparently prompted U.S. forces to bring in heavy weapons such as helicopters, tanks and AC130 gunships that have pounded suspected militant sites in the densely populated neighbourhoods.
Since Sunday, more than 190 Iraqis have been killed around the country, as well as 32 Americans and two other coalition soldiers. The Iraqi figure did not include the dead at the mosque.
Gen. Kimmitt vowed to "destroy" the militia of radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which has been behind the wave of attacks and street fighting with coalition troops in southern cities and Baghdad this week.
Mr. al-Sadr said Iraq will become "another Vietnam" for the United States unless it transfers power to Iraqis who are not connected with the U.S.-led occupation authority, "otherwise, Iraq will be another Vietnam for America and the occupiers."
Mr. al-Sadr's militia, known as the Mahdi Army, launched heavy gun battles with coalition forces in the streets of three southern cities Wednesday and, for the first time, in the north. His fighters battled U.S. troops in the town of Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, hitting a U.S. helicopter with small arms fire. The OH-58 Kiowa chopper was damaged and forced to land, but the two crewmembers were unharmed.
And Shia gunmen drove Ukrainian forces out of the southern city of Kut — raising concerns over the coalition's ability to control Mr. al-Sadr's uprising.
After gun battles overnight killed 12 Iraqis, the Ukrainians withdrew from Kut, and Mr. al-Sadr's followers swept into their base, seized weapons stores and planted their flag on a nearby grain silo.
The black-garbed gunmen of the militia also had virtual control of Kufa and Karbala, where Iraqi police lay low, allowing militiamen to move freely and acting only to prevent looting. Militiamen in Karbala clashed with Polish patrols that moved through their areas, and a cleric who was a senior official in al-Sadr's office in the city was killed.
Mr. al-Sadr and his militia are unpopular among most of Iraq's Shia majority, and there was no sign that the Shia public in the south was rallying to their side to launch a wider popular uprising.
The week's fighting showed, however, a strength that few expected from the militia, and moderate Shia clerics and leaders have not raised their voices strongly against the uprising.
There were also signs of sympathy for his revolt among Sunni insurgents, who have been fighting the U.S.-led occupation for months and have often chided their Shia countrymen for not joining in.
Portraits of Mr. al-Sadr and graffiti praising his "valiant uprising" appeared on mosque and government building walls in the Sunni city of Ramadi. Peaceful protests in support of Mr. al-Sadr occurred in the northern cities of Mosul and Rashad.
Monday night in Baghdad, al-Sadr gunmen went to a mainly Sunni neighbourhood to join with insurgents there in firing on U.S. vehicles — the only known instance so far in which Sunni and Shia militants have joined forces.
Anger was also spreading over the three-day U.S. siege of Fallujah, one of the Sunni insurgents' strongest bastions, west of Baghdad. Iraqis protesting against the operation clashed with U.S. troops outside the northern city of Kirkuk in fighting that left eight Iraqis dead and 10 wounded.
