Latest: One Killed, 6 Wounded in Wednesday's Mosque Bombing

Marines Fight for Control of Fallujah, Inch by Inch
One Killed, 6 Wounded in Wednesday's Fighting
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 7, 2004; 3:20 PM


~snip~
One Marine was killed and six were wounded by rifle and grenade fire, while news services quoted witnesses who said more than two dozen Iraqis were killed when U.S. aircraft attacked a mosque compound where insurgents had taken shelter and fired on U.S. forces. Marine officers said, however, that there was no sign of casualties at the mosque. The conflicting accounts were not immediately reconcilable.

Marine officials here defended the bombing of the mosque, a highly controversial act in a Muslim society, saying it was a military necessity.

And even as they faced sustained armed resistance, they said they had successfully gained control of one-quarter of Fallujah, a city of 300,000 that is a cauldron of anti-coalition anger and violence.

"We do not attack mosques willy-nilly, but we will fire back at any place where we take direct fire," said Lt. Col. Brennan T. Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, one of two regiments that entered Fallujah on Monday as part of a massive operation to eliminate anti-occupation forces from the city, which is about 35 miles west of Baghdad.

~snip~
much more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57805-2004Apr7?language=printer

Looks like the latest info on the Mosque Bombing.

There are still dozens of Iraqi martyrs from the bombing, reportedly twenty five from just one family.

Robert Fisk's latest dispatch for the Independent of London, dateline April 7, Fallujah:

The grim truth, however, is that the occupying powers are now facing insurrection of various strengths in almost every big city in Iraq.

Yet they are still not confronting that truth. For the past nine nights, for example, the main US base close to Baghdad airport - and the area around the terminals - has come under mortar fire. Yet the occupying powers have kept this secret. "Things are getting very bad and they're going to get worse," a special forces officer said close to the airport yesterday. "But no one is saying that - either because they don't know or because they don't want you to know."

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=5282

Fisk is our epoch's Orwell; Zmag (http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm) is doing a good job of reprinting his pieces.

Please post all US and Iraqi casualty updates in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x469814

Thanks! :hi: