US blitz on mosque

More than 40 Iraqis worshipping at a mosque were feared killed in a US airstrike today.

A helicopter fired three missiles at the mosque as Muslims gathered for afternoon prayers.

The attack followed America's vow to destroy the Mehdi Army, an armed militia loyal to outlawed Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Cars were ferrying bodies from the scene in the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad. Angry residents gathered around the mosque.

News of the attack increased pressure on President Bush who is facing mounting criticism over the disaster unfolding in Iraq as violence sweeps the country.

The fighting in Fallujah and neighbouring Ramadi - where commanders confirmed 12 US marines were killed yesterday - was part of an intensified uprising involving Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims that now stretched from Kirkuk in the north to the far south. In Fallujah, one of the most dangerous hot-beds of resistance to the coalition, witnesses described seeing bodies being pulled from the smoking debris of the mosque's outbuildings. Part of the wall surrounding the Abdul-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque was demolished.

One US official, who asked not to be identified, said insurgents had used mosques in the area to fire on troops and that they had at times returned the fire.

There was further evidence of a major coalition offensive when Iraqi police reported that Polish troops had killed the head of al-Sadr's office in Kerbala, militant cleric Murtada al-Mussawi, during clashes in the holy Shi'ite city today. But there was an immediate defiant response from another al-Sadr commander in Najaf, who claimed an unspecified number of coalition soldiers had been captured in street clashes.

And a South African working for a British security company was killed by Iraqi Shi'ite radicals in the southern Iraqi city of Kut.

The sources said he had died when the house he was living in with other contractors was attacked by Shi'ite militia forces.

Kut has been the scene of violent clashes for the past three days between Shi'ite militiamen and forces of the US-led coalition.

Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said: "In the central and southern regions of Iraq, the coalition and Iraqi security forces are conducting operations to destroy the Mehdi Army."

More than 170 Iraqis and 33 members of the coalition forces have died in clashes in areas to the west and south of the capital.

The 12 US marines died during Iraq's biggest battle since the fall of Baghdad. Dozens of Iraqi militants were also killed as they launched a full-scale assault on the marines in the town of Ramadi, leaving 20 more American troops wounded. And eight more Iraqis died during fresh clashes with US troops near Kirkuk today.

Mr Bush held crisis talks with America's top military commander, air force general Richard Myers, and his key defence and foreign affairs adviser after the battle.

As many as 15 al-Sadr followers have been killed by British troops in the last two days in Basra and Amarah.

But al-Sadr himself, wanted on suspicion of murdering a fellow cleric, is being guarded by hundreds of followers in the holy city of Najaf.