US, Iraqi troops battle gunmen after mosque attack
Source: Reuters
(Updates casualty toll, main road cut) BAGHDAD, March 25 (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi troops clashed with gunmen in a town south of Baghdad on Sunday shortly after a Sunni mosque was bombed in apparent revenge for the destruction of a Shi'ite mosque there a day earlier. Gunmen stormed the Sunni mosque in Haswa, a religiously mixed town about 50 km (35 miles) south of the Iraqi capital, on Sunday morning and holed its minaret with a blast. Part of the building was set on fire, a police official said. The police chief in the nearby town of Hilla, Major General Qais al-Maamuri, said two people were wounded. A second Sunni mosque was attacked but damage was reported to be minor. It followed a suicide truck bomb that exploded outside a Shi'ite mosque in Haswa on Saturday, killing at least 14 and wounding 21. Only the mosque's minaret was left standing. As Shi'ite residents combed through the rubble of the building on Sunday, a column of armoured U.S. and Iraqi Humvee vehicles nearby came under machinegun fire, said a cameraman working for Reuters who filmed the attack. U.S. troops could be seen running into buildings nearby. The area was rocked by an explosion that sent a large cloud of dust into the air. The cause of the blast was not immediately clear. The U.S. military, which does not typically comment on ongoing operations, said it was checking the report. The fighting cut one of the main roads between Baghdad and southern Iraq for about 90 minutes and a curfew was imposed for several hours, police chief Maamuri said. He said three people were wounded in the clashes and a large number of suspects detained. Mosques and other religious buildings have been frequent targets of attack. The bombing of a revered Shi'ite shrine, the al-Askariya mosque, in the town of Samarra in February 2006 sparked a wave of sectarian fighting between Iraq's majority Shi'ites and minority Sunnis that has killed tens of thousands.
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