Fierce fighting sweeps Iraqi cities as mosque attacked

7.50am

UPDATED REPORT - FALLUJA - US-led forces battled Sunni Muslim guerrillas and a spreading Shi'ite uprising this morning, as Iraqi anger was inflamed by a blast in the grounds of a mosque that witnesses said killed 25 people.

In the last three days 35 American and allied soldiers and at least 200 Iraqis have been killed in the heaviest fighting since the fall of Saddam Hussein nearly a year ago.

The spiralling two-front war, with new flashpoints flaring across the country as backers of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr take up arms, is calling into question US plans to transfer sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.

US President George W Bush -- campaigning for re-election in November with opinion polls showing plunging support over Iraq -- held phone talks with close ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but officials dismissed any suggestion of a crisis.

However, some countries with troops in Iraq signalled the situation was growing serious. Ukrainian troops pulled out of the eastern city of Kut after clashes and regrouped at a base camp. Japan said its troops would suspend reconstruction work in Samawa, in the south, because of security concerns.

Battles raged between US Marines and guerrillas in the Sunni towns of Falluja and Ramadi west of Baghdad, while US-led forces fought Shi'ite militants in the capital, Kut and the central Iraq cities of Kerbala and Najaf.

A US military spokesman said there were five Marine "casualties" in Falluja this morning, but it was not clear if any had been killed.

Witnesses in the town said US Marines attacked a mosque compound, killing at least 25 people. The US military said two 227-kg bombs were dropped and rockets were fired at insurgents hiding behind the mosque's outer wall, but did not know if there were any casualties.

"When you start using a religious location for military purposes, it loses its protected status. The Marines called in additional support, dropped two...precision-guided bombs and took out the outer wall of the mosque without seeming to harm...the actual mosque structure itself," US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told CNN.

In nearby Ramadi, mosques broadcast calls for a holy war as blasts echoed across the town and black smoke billowed into the sky. Residents crouched in houses as masked insurgents and Marines fought in small alleyways. Women and children cried.

Twelve Marines were killed on Tuesday in a seven-hour battle in Ramadi -- one of the costliest single losses for US forces since the war that toppled Saddam began last March.

The US military launched a major operation this week to secure Ramadi and Falluja, where four US private security guards were killed last week and their bodies set ablaze and mutilated by a jubilant crowd of Iraqis.

In Baghdad overnight, a US soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade, bringing to 443 the number of US troops killed in action in Iraq since last year's invasion.

Since Sunday, 33 US troops, a Ukrainian soldier and a Salvadoran soldier have been killed in clashes.

In a mainly Sunni Baghdad district, clashes with US troops began after nightfall. Residents said gunfire and explosions sounded through Adhamiya for the second time in three days.

North of Baghdad, a US helicopter landed after being hit by gunfire. The US army said there were no casualties.

An aide to Sadr told a news conference some US soldiers had been captured in the fighting. There was no independent confirmation of his statement.

"Some tribes have captured some occupation forces on the streets," Qays al-Khazali told a news conference in Najaf, a Shi'ite holy city.

The US military said its forces would destroy Sadr's Mehdi Army militia and that the cleric would be arrested.

The upsurge in violence has prompted critics of Bush to suggest US forces face a Vietnam-style quagmire.

Bulgaria summoned ambassadors of the United States, Britain, Spain and Poland to the foreign ministry on Wednesday asking for back-up for 450 Bulgarian soldiers stationed in Kerbala.

The base has come under attack several times by Shi'ite militiamen, and a Bulgarian civilian truck driver was killed in an attack on a convoy in southern Iraq on Tuesday.

Kazakhstan said it would pull its troops out of Iraq when the tour of its present contingent ends in May. It said the Central Asian state's troops, about 30-strong, had been ordered to stay in their camp until tensions abated around Kut.

Sadr has appealed to all Iraqis, whatever their religion, to help expel the US-led occupying forces.

"This insurrection shows that the Iraqi people are not satisfied with the occupation and they will not accept oppression," Sadr said in a statement on yesterday.

Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani condemned the way US-led forces were tackling the uprising and called for calm on all sides and an end to violence.

Bush has vowed the campaign by Sadr's supporters would not derail Washington's plans.

"We will pass sovereignty (to Iraqis) on June 30," he told a rally in Arkansas on Tuesday. "We're not going to be intimidated by thugs and assassins."

A US opinion poll on Monday showed support for Bush's handling of Iraq at a new low of 40 per cent, with 44 per cent wanting US troops withdrawn.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq