"I understand there was a large casualty toll taken by the enemy, who were
abusing that mosque and everything it stood for. When you start using a
religious location for military purposes, it loses its protected status."
Donald Rumsfeld insists the unrest in Iraq is just a 'power play'.
The attack was launched on the fourth day of the intensifying conflict, with
coalition forces fighting on two fronts against Sunnis and Shi'ites and as
new flashpoints flared across the country.
President George W Bush spoke to Tony Blair about the upsurge of fighting
before their talks next week as their opponents pressed them to clarify
their plans to hand over sovereignty to Iraq on June 30. But officials in
Washington and London insisted there was no crisis.
Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, said coalition forces faced a
"serious" problem but played down the scale of the insurgency. "The stakes
are high," he said. But he insisted that the unrest was a "power play" by a
small number of "increasingly desperate terrorists". While the fighting
worsened in Fallujah and Ramadi, west of Baghdad, the coalition effectively
surrendered a provincial capital to gunmen loyal to Sadr.
The Coalition Provisional Authority's headquarters in the city of Kut, 100
miles south-east of Baghdad, was evacuated under heavy fire from Sadr's
militia. Thirteen Britons were among those who fled as a South African
security contractor was killed.
Ukrainian forces failed to defend the compound and pulled out of Kut.
Previously, only Iraqi policemen had abandoned their positions under attack
from Sadr's Mahdi army.
The rout of the Ukrainian forces underlined the weakness of the coalition
forces in most of the south. Coalition sources said the allied armies were
not in a position to confront Sadr's militia except in Baghdad.
But Gen Kimmitt was confident. He said: "The coalition and Iraqi security
forces will continue deliberate, precise and powerful offensive operations
to destroy the Mahdi army throughout Iraq." Sadr should "turn himself in".
The biggest of the offensives was on Sunni insurgents in Fallujah and
Ramadi. About 2,000 soldiers from 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were
engaged in house-to-house fighting. In Ramadi, where 12 American marines
were killed on Tuesday, mosques broadcast calls for a holy war against the
troops.
Operation Vigilant Resolve, the offensive against gunmen responsible for
daily attacks on US forces, has now claimed at least 150 Iraqi lives. More
than 30 American soldiers have been killed on the two fronts since the
weekend.
The attack on the mosque was launched by a jet fighter and a helicopter
gunship. They struck the compound after worshippers had gathered for
afternoon prayers.
The Americans said that gunmen in the mosque had destroyed a Humvee vehicle
with a rocket-propelled grenade, wounding five marines. Lt-Col Brennan
Byrne, the commander of 1st Bn 5th Marine Regiment, said his men had now
pressed into the centre of Fallujah.
The 250,000 people of the city are running short of food. A local doctor
said that 16 children and eight women had been killed in an air strike on
houses on Tuesday. A huge area of western Iraq has been sealed off, with
the highway linking Baghdad with the Jordanian capital, Amman, closed to all
traffic. An American helicopter was shot down in Baquba, 20 miles north-east
of Baghdad, and a British civilian contractor, Gary Teeley, was kidnapped in
the southern town of Nasiriyah.
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