Fallujah, Iraq — U.S. marines in a fierce battle for this Sunni Muslim stronghold bombed a mosque compound filled with worshippers Wednesday and witnesses said as many as 40 people were killed. Meanwhile, an uprising by a Shiite militia spread the fighting to nearly all of Iraq.
The fighting in Fallujah and neighbouring Ramadi has killed 15 marines since Monday and was part of an intensified uprising involving both Sunni and Shiites that on Wednesday stretched from Kirkuk in the north to the far south.
Marines waged a six-hour battle around the Abdul-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque with the militants holed up inside. A Cobra helicopter fired a Hellfire missile at the base of its minaret, and an F-16 dropped a 225-kilogram, laser-guided bomb, said marine Lt.-Col. Brennan Byrne.
Witnesses said the strike came as worshippers had gathered for afternoon prayers.
Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has warned neighbouring Kuwait to end the U.S. military presence at bases within the emirate. (Karim Sahib/AFP)
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An Associated Press reporter saw cars ferrying the dead and wounded from the mosque. Witnesses said part of a wall surrounding the mosque compound was destroyed but the main building had not been damaged.
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 killed.
The attack was launched after a marine vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from the mosque, wounding five marines, Col. Byrne said.
Elsewhere in Fallujah, U.S. forces seized another mosque, the al-Muadidi mosque, and a marine climbed its minaret and fired down on gunmen, witnesses said. Insurgents hit the minaret with rocket-propelled grenades, causing it to partly collapse, The AP reporter said.
Insurgents also blew up two highway overpasses into the city to prevent U.S. troops from using them. A U.S. helicopter rocketed three houses, and the reporter saw at least five wounded people, including a young boy, being pulled out of one them.
In Baghdad, Brig.-Gen. Mark Kimmitt told CNN that a mosque, as a holy place, normally is protected from attack under the Geneva Convention. “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.
U.S. forces launched the operation in Fallujah earlier this week in an attempt to pacify the city of 200,000 where there have been repeated deadly attacks on Americans by insurgents, including the four U.S. civilians killed and mutilated in an ambush last week.
Col. Byrne said the marines controlled about a quarter of Fallujah on Wednesday. However, the insurgents, who enjoy wide support among Fallujah's inhabitants, were dug in and fiercely resisting the U.S. advance.
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 guerrilla sites in the densely populated neighbourhoods.
Since Sunday, 34 Americans, two other coalition soldiers and more than 190 Iraqis had been killed in fighting across the country. The Iraqi figure did not include those killed at the mosque.
Gen. Kimmitt, meanwhile, has vowed to “destroy” the militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which has been behind the wave of attacks and street fighting with coalition troops in southern cities and in 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.
“I call upon the American people to stand beside their brethren, the Iraqi people, who are suffering an injustice by your rulers and the occupying army, to help them in the transfer of power to honest Iraqis,” Mr. al-Sadr said in a statement issued from his office in the southern city of Najaf. “Otherwise, Iraq will be another Vietnam for America and the occupiers.”
Mr. al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army militia launched heavy gunbattles with coalition forces in the streets of three southern cities Wednesday and, for the first time, in the north.
Al-Sadr fighters battled American 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 not harmed.
And Shiite gunmen drove Ukrainian forces out of the southern city of Kut — raising concerns over the ability of U.S. allies to control Mr. al-Sadr's uprising.
After the Ukrainians withdrew from Kut, 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 al-Mahdi Army also had virtual control of Kufa and Karbala. Militiamen in Karbala clashed with Polish patrols that moved through their areas, and a cleric who was a senior official in Mr. al-Sadr's office in the city was killed.
Mr. al-Sadr, 30 is regarded as something of an upstart by many Iraqi Shiites and there was no immediate sign that the Shiite public in the south was rallying to his support.
But the week's fighting showed a strength that few expected from the al-Mahdi Army, and moderate Shiite clerics and leaders have not raised their voices strongly against the uprising.
And there was praise for Mr. al-Sadr's revolt from Sunni insurgents, who have been fighting the U.S.-led occupation for months and who have often chided their Shiite 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.
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 the operation clashed with U.S. troops outside the northern city of Kirkuk in fighting that left eight Iraqis dead and 10 wounded.
In one of the biggest single-day losses by U.S. forces, 12 marines were killed Tuesday in Ramadi.
Maj.-Gen. James Mattis, 1st Marine Division commander, said his forces were still fighting insurgents that included Syrian mercenaries along a 1½-kilometre front in the area on Wednesday.
Sixteen children and eight women were reported killed when warplanes struck four houses late Tuesday, said Hatem Samir, a Fallujah Hospital official.
In other violence:
Militiamen battled Spanish soldiers in Najaf, south of Baghdad. An Iraqi taxi driver was killed in the crossfire, a hospital official said.
Clashes erupted overnight in Baghdad's Sadr City, killing four Iraqis and wounding seven others, doctors said.
Militiamen traded fire with Polish troops in Karbala overnight. Two Iranian tourists were killed in the crossfire, witnesses said.
Gunmen attacked a police car Tuesday night in Youssifiya, south of Baghdad, killing two policemen.
