Fighting intensifies in 4 Iraqi cities

U.S. troops push into south Falluja

Friday, November 12, 2004 Posted: 11:02 PM EST (0402 GMT)

FALLUJA, Iraq (CNN) -- As U.S. soldiers advanced into southern Falluja on Friday, violence and combat intensified across Iraq, with battles flaring in Mosul, Baquba and Baghdad.

Adding firepower to an offensive that began Thursday, U.S. airstrikes hit a cemetery in southwestern Mosul on Friday.

The targets were insurgents who carried out attacks on government facilities and Iraqi forces in the northern Iraqi city earlier in the week, said Capt. Angela Bowman of Task Force Olympia.

Iraqi national guard forces and soldiers from the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, or Stryker Brigade Combat Team, launched the offensive Thursday at the request of the governor of Nineveh province, where Mosul is located.

A U.S. soldier was killed by small-arms fire during the offensive, a military statement said. The soldier was assigned to Task Force Olympia. No other details were immediately available.

Clashes also erupted in the Kurdish neighborhood of Bakr between Patriotic Union of Kurdistan members and insurgents who tried to take over a PUK building.

The violence across Iraq comes as the imam of the Abu Hanifa mosque in Adamiyah called for a jihad against U.S. forces and the interim government during noon prayers Friday.

More...

Our worst nightmare is becoming true. At the root of the problem is a simple truth...you can't liberate a people who never asked to be liberated in the first place. In the meantime, 1,169 American soldiers have in Iraq because George Bush claimed the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction they didn't really have.