US, Iraqi troops battle gunmen after mosque attack

Iraqi soldiers stand guard outside a Sunni mosque which was destroyed during a bomb attack in Haswa

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 blew up the Sunni mosque in Haswa, a religiously mixed town about 50 km (35 miles) south of the Iraqi capital, on Sunday morning, demolishing its minaret and reducing much of the empty building to rubble...

The incidents 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.

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