Mosque on Fire After U.S. Air Strikes in West Iraq
/U.S. marines engaged in heavy clashes with scores of insurgents
near a mosque in western Iraq on Monday, leading to U.S. air strikes
which damaged the shrine and left it ablaze, the U.S. military said. A
U.S. military spokesman said marines came under fire from around 100
insurgents near the town of Hit, about 107 miles west of Baghdad, and
engaged in an hour-long firefight. "Some of the anti-Iraqi forces took
up fighting positions in a mosque," the spokesman in Baghdad said. "Air
strikes were called in on the mosque position. The mosque is partially
damaged and is currently on fire," he said. It was not immediately
clear if it was a Sunni or Shi'ite Muslim mosque, but the vast majority
of people in Anbar province, which includes the town of Hit, are Sunni
Muslims. [more 
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