Mosque bombed as troops mired in street fights

US MARINES fired a rocket and dropped a 500-pound laser-guided bomb on the Fallujah mosque compound yesterday as they found themselves mired in street battles that have left almost 300 people dead in three days of the type of warfare that generals had dreaded.

The Marines had 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 Marine Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne.

The fight began when a Marine vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from the mosque, wounding five Marines, Byrne said.

“We believe we killed a bunch of these guys,” said Byrne. “Marines will never do anything like this unless fired upon.

“We now control 25% of the city,” he said.

The death toll continued to mount as the majority Shi’ite and minority Sunni Muslims mounted repeated attacks on coalition troops yesterday.

The bloodiest incident of the day took place during the siege of Fallujah, one of Iraq’s most violent cities. About 40 people were said to have been killed in a helicopter-launched US rocket attack on a mosque complex.

President George W Bush, who was at his Texas ranch, held talks with national security and military advisers on the spiralling violence. He knows that every American body bag that comes home from Iraq reduces his chances of re-election in November.

The president also held a phone conference with his closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

An American general vowed to “destroy” a Shi’ite militia that, along with Sunni Muslim guerrillas, was waging the most extensive fighting since Mr Bush

declared the war over last May. At the same time, the US-appointed Governing Council discussed a proposal not to prosecute the rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for murder if he agrees to halt a Shi’ite uprising.

The fighting in Fallujah and neighbouring Ramadi, where commanders confirmed 12 US marines were killed on Tuesday night,

was part of an intensified uprising involving both Sunni and Shi’ites that now stretches from Kirkuk in the north to the far south.

A reporter in Fallujah saw cars ferrying the dead and wounded from the Abdul-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque. Witnesses said a helicopter fired three missiles into the compound, destroying part of a wall surrounding the mosque, but not damaging the main building. The strike came as worshippers had gathered for afternoon prayers, witnesses 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.

Lieut Col Byrne ordered the strike against the mosque, he said, after his men came under fire from 30 to 40 insurgents inside the building and armed men came out of the compound in an ambulance and opened fire on US troops. “If they use the mosque as a military machine, then it’s no longer a house of worship and we strike,” said Byrne.

The intensity of the resistance in the city of 200,000 apparently prompted US forces to bring in heavy weapons such as helicopters, tanks and AC130 gunships that have pounded suspected militant sites in the densely populated neighbourhoods.

Until the mosque attack, 30 Americans, two other coalition soldiers and more than 190 Iraqis had been killed in fighting across Iraq since Sunday.