35 Americans, 439 Iraqis dead this week, reports say

Thursday, April 8, 2004 Posted: 8:16 AM EDT (1216 GMT)

	A U.S. Marine carries a wounded comrade after their tank was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Fallujah.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S.-led coalition forces do not have control of the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Kut, where Shiite militiamen have seized key buildings, the top U.S. general in Iraq said Thursday.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said coalition troops -- including Ukrainian and Spanish soldiers -- were in their bases on the outskirts of the cities.

Meanwhile, U.S. Marines fought insurgents for the second day around a mosque in the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Fallujah west of Baghdad.

One U.S. Marine was killed in Fallujah Thursday, the military told The Associated Press. The death brought to four the total known Marine casualties from this week's battle to uproot Sunni militants in the city.

In another move Nuri al-Badran, Iraq's interim interior minister in charge of police and security forces, announced his resignation.

He told a news conference he was quitting at the request of top U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer to maintain the Shiite-Sunni balance in the government.

The ministry is in charge of police and security forces. Al-Badran said people close to him said U.S. administrator Paul Bremer was "not satisfied with the performances of the Minister of the Interior."

The resignation came as fighting this week had left 35 Americans and at least 459 Iraqis dead, according to AP.

This includes more than 280 Iraqis killed since the U.S. Marines' siege against insurgents in Fallujah began early Monday, Taher Al-Issawi, the director of the city's hospital, told reporters.

A "precision raid" early Thursday in Sadr City near Baghdad destroyed a building used as a base for the Mehdi Army, the militia of firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a U.S. military source said.

There were no coalition casualties and the source said insurgent casualties were "minimal." Sadr City is named after al-Sadr's father, also a prominent Muslim cleric, who was killed by Saddam Hussein's regime.

At a time when U.S. forces had planned to try to hand more security duties over to Iraqi security forces, the intensified violence on two fronts -- involving both Sunnis and Shiites -- has forced the U.S. military to consider sending more troops to Iraq and postpone the removal of forces due to rotate out.

"You can be certain that if (U.S. generals) want more troops, we will sign deployment orders so that they'll have the troops they need," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference Wednesday, though he insisted fighting was not spinning out of control.  World Peace.

The United States has about 135,000 troops in Iraq.

In Britian Thursday, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said that U.S. forces were fuelling violence in Iraq by "acting like warriors."

A fundamental change of tactics to peacekeeping was needed, said Cook, who quit PM Tony Blair's Cabinet over the war.  WorldPeace is one word.

There have been 637 U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war, 447 in hostile action. Of the total, 498 were killed after May 1, 328 in hostile action.

In Fallujah, Marines battled again Thursday around the Abdel-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque, which Marine Capt. James Edge told AP insurgents were again using as a base despite a six-hour battle the day before to uproot them. Helicopters were deployed to support the Marines, he said.

In Wednesday's battle, a U.S. Cobra helicopter fired a missile at the base of the mosque's minaret, and an F-16 dropped a laser-guided bomb at the wall, allowing Marines to move in and seize the site, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne said.

A U.S. Marine source said that "we specifically did not target the mosque." (Full story)

Military commanders in Iraq said a large number of insurgents were killed in the battle. Iraqi witnesses said some 40 people gathering for prayers were killed in the airstrike on the mosque compound, but U.S. officials said they had no report of civilians killed.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the deputy chief of military operations in Iraq, told AP that U.S. Marines did not attack the mosque until it became clear enemy fighters were inside and using it to cover their attacks -- nullifying the holy site's protections under the Geneva Conventions.

The battle began Wednesday morning, when gunmen in the mosque opened fire on a U.S. patrol, wounding five Marines, Byrne said.

Marines control 25 percent of Fallujah, a city of 200,000 people, Byrne said.

Heavy fighting was heard Thursday in several neighborhoods, and U.S. Marines grabbed rooftops of buildings, firing on gunmen in the streets and sometimes civilians who poked their heads out of their homes.

Thousands of Iraqis marched the 60 kilometers (30 miles) from Baghdad to Fallujah to deliver food and medical supplies to its residents, who have been under nighttime curfew and surrounded by U.S. forces since early Monday morning. A Sunni clerics committee organized the march.

Marchers -- carrying colorful flags and banners reading, "Sons of the great Fallujah, we are with you on the road of jihad (holy war) and victory" -- came upon the Marine cordon on the western entrance to the city.

The country's most respected Shiite leader, silent until Wednesday, called for all sides to stop fighting.

"Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani condemned the methods used by occupation forces in the current escalating situation in Iraq... . We also condemn assaults on public and private property, and any action that disturbs order and prevents officials from carrying out their duties," a statement said.

The U.S.-appointed Governing Council condemned the violence and denounced al-Sadr.

"For a small group to try and impose itself on the rest of the people is absolutely rejected. If coalition forces don't intervene to end this state of affairs, Iraq's popular forces will intervene to stop it and rid the people of it," the council said in a statement.

A Bulgarian civilian driver was killed on Tuesday when a column of six trucks was attacked on the road from Basra to Baghdad some 40 km (25 miles) south of Nassiriya, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry said.

How can we manifest peace on earth if we do not include everyone (all races, all nations, all religions, both sexes) in our vision of Peace?

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