US Precision guided amunitions - Yee-Ha!

U.S. troops battled insurgents in fierce fighting that killed at least 12 people in the volatile Sunni city of Ramadi, the military said Thursday. Iraqi authorities said the dead included women and children.

The six-hour firefight began after the U.S. troops were attacked by insurgents with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades Wednesday evening in eastern Ramadi, said Marine spokesman 1st Lt. Shawn Mercer.

The fighting ended after "precision guided munitions'' damaged a number of buildings being used by the insurgents, he said. Twelve insurgents were killed and three were wounded, he said, adding that there were no civilian casualties.

However, Dr. Hafidh Ibrahim of the Ramadi Hospital said 26 people, including four women and children, were killed when three houses were damaged in the fighting.

Photographs made available to The Associated Press showed the bodies of two small boys wrapped in one blanket, one with a bloody face, the other ashen and with mud on his mouth, his hands crossed on his chest. Other photos showed four or five bodies covered by blankets, and several men pulling at a pile of rubble and concrete bricks outside, apparently the wreckage of one of the destroyed houses. Link