thursday, april 8, 2004
news
the university daily kansar
7A
Marines strike back after uprising
The Associated Press
FALLUIAH, Iraq - U.S. Marines in the third day of a battle to pacify this Sunni Muslim city fired a rocket and dropped a 500-pound, laser-guided bomb on a mosque compound yesterday, and witnesses said dozens were killed. Shiite-inspired violence spread to key cities in Iraq.
The fighting in Fallujah and neighboring Ramadi — just east of Baghdad — has killed 15 Marines since Monday and was part of an intensified uprising involving other Sunni towns in northern and central Iraq, and Shiite population centers south of the capital.
Marines waged a six-hour battle around the Abdul-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque with militants
The fight began when a Marine vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from the mosque, wounding five Marines, and a large U.S. force converged on it, Byrne said.
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 Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne.
Witnesses said the strike came as worshippers had gathered for afternoon prayers.
An Associated Press reporter saw cars ferrying out dead and wounded. Witnesses estimated that as many as 40 people were killed.
The military gave widely varying accounting of the casualties. Master Sgt. Robert Beyer, a spokesman for the 1st Marine
Expeditionary Force in Camp Pendleton, Calif., said one "enemy combatant" was killed, and there were "no worshippers" or civilian casualties. Byrne, in Iraq, said "we believe we killed a bunch of these guys."
Witnesses said part of a wall surrounding the mosque compound was destroyed but the main building was not damaged.
In Baghad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told CNN that from photos of the mosque he had seen, "the actual mosque structure itself" was not damaged.
Its minaret was damaged, but still standing. an AP reported said.
be attacked."
"It is a holy place, there is no doubt about it," Kimmitt added. "It has a special status under the Geneva Convention that it can't
"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.
Because casualties were rushed to makeshift clinics in private homes and mosques, the number of dead and wounded was unclear.
During fighting 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.
'Rock Chalk'-ing the walk
Kit Leffler/Kansan
Ali Bannwarth, Independence sophomore, chalked the sidewalk in front of Watson Library yesterday at dusk. Bannwarth was chalking for the KUnited coalition's Student Senate campaign. "I just want people to get out and vote," Bannwarth said. The elections will be April 14 and 15.
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