Iraqi fighting toll tops 200

2004-04-07 17:08

Baghdad - United States troops, battling to crush a deadly two-pronged insurgency and stop Iraq sliding into chaos, bombed a mosque in the hotspot city of Fallujah on Wednesday, killing up to 40 Sunni Muslim rebels hiding inside.

More than 200 people have been killed on both sides in four days of fierce clashes, with battles flaring between Shiite and Sunni radicals and US-led troops in towns across Iraq including the capital, Baghdad.

American leaders have vowed to hunt down and destroy the "thugs" in the militia of a radical Shiite Muslim cleric behind much of the violence.

It erupted less than three months before the United States plans to hand over sovereignty to Iraqis.

Fiercely anti-American cleric Moqtada Sadr is attracting growing support from discontented Shiites, angered that change has not come more quickly almost a year to the day since their oppressor, Saddam Hussein, was ousted.

'We want to kill the people inside'

American fighter aircraft slammed a Hell Fire missile and a laser-guided precision bomb into the mosque in Fallujah - a Sunni Muslim stronghold west of Baghdad - after three US marines were wounded by rebel fire.

"We want to kill the people inside," said Lieutenant-Colonel Brennan Byrne, adding there were as many as 40 rebels holed up in the building.

US marines have been locked in fierce fighting with Sunni insurgents in the town for three days, with about 46 Iraqis killed and dozens wounded in the town before the mosque bombing, hospital sources said.

The marine operation, involving about 2 000 troops and dubbed "Vigilant Resolve", is aimed at flushing out insurgents who killed four American contractors last week, dragging their burned, mutilated bodies through the streets and stringing two from a bridge.

All the city mosques were calling for a "jihad" (holy war) against US-led occupation forces amid intense bombardments and aircraft overflights, said a news correspondent.

Calm was restored in the Sunni town of Ramadi, 80km west of Baghdad on Wednesday, a day after 12 marines were killed there in the worst single day loss for US forces this year.

Eight die in overnight clashes

US Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt vowed coalition forces would turn the tables on the Shiite Mehdi Army militia and called on Sadr to turn himself in to face murder charges, and help end the violence.

In the southern Shiite city of Karbala, five Iranians and three Iraqis were killed and 16 wounded during overnight clashes between US troops and Mehdi Army militiamen.

Eight Iraqis were also killed on Wednesday and 12 wounded in an exchange of gunfire with US troops during a demonstration in Hawija, west of the northern Kurdish-dominated city of Kirkuk, to protest against US attacks on Fallujah, said police and medics.

But, calm returned to the southern city of Nasiriyah after a day of fierce fighting during which 15 Iraqis among them three rebels were killed.

- AFP