That's not the entire story.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html
Coalition forces battle Sunni, Shiite forces
Mosque compound struck in Fallujah
Wednesday, April 7, 2004 Posted: 2:09 PM EDT (1809 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Army bulked up its forces in a teeming Baghdad Shiite neighborhood to take on the Mehdi Army, the militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and Marines fought pitched battles with insurgents in Fallujah, the center of anti-U.S. unrest in the Sunni Triangle.
"The coalition is conducting ongoing combat operations to take the fight to the enemy in order to restore order in Fallujah and to destroy the Mehdi Army," the militia loyal to firebrand cleric al-Sadr, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt.
Insurgents inside a mosque complex in Fallujah were firing heavily at U.S troops on Wednesday, U.S. military officials said. Marines, pinned down, dropped two precision-guided 500-pound bombs on the walls of the mosque and fired a Hellfire missile.
Kimmitt said about 40 armed insurgents were firing on the Marines from the "sanctity of the walls of the mosque."
"It didn't appear to us," Kimmitt said, "to have any effect on the main dome building itself."
He added, "I understand there was a large casualty toll" for insurgents but didn't give any figures.
A Marine source told CNN that "we specifically did not target the mosque."
A Marine lieutenant told pool reporters that a second mosque was also an insurgent hideout and Marines returned fire using ground assets. But Kimmitt couldn't confirm that.
The Sunni Triangle is an area north and west of Baghdad that has been a hotbed of resistance to the U.S.-led occupation.
The upsurge in fighting had been predicted by the U.S. military as the June 30 handover date nears.
It comes a week after the grisly slayings of four U.S. security contractors in Fallujah and a few days before a major Shiite festival is to be held in Iraq.
During the Shiite festival of Ashura in March, more than 180 people were killed in Baghdad and Karbala.
The resistance posed by the Mehdi Army came after al-Sadr's hostile anti-U.S. sermon during Friday's prayers and the shutdown of a Baghdad paper, run by his supporters, that the coalition said incited violence.