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In August 2004, fighting broke out again between American troops of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st Battalion, 5th US Cavalry Regiment and 2nd Battalion, 7th US Cavalry Regiment, 15th Forward Support Battalion and Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. The battle, which was mostly centered around Wādī' as-Salām Cemetery and the southwestern portion of the city, lasted three weeks and ended when senior Iraqi cleric Grand Ayatollah Alī Al-Sīstānī negotiated an end to the fighting. The evening before Al-Sistani arrived in the city, two F-16's, flying out of Balad, dropped four two-thousand pound JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) on two hotels in close proximity to the Imam Ali Shrine. The success of this airstrike dealt a devastating blow to the insurgents holed up in the second holiest shrine in the Islamic faith.
Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_x30I0_ibE
They should have just dropped napalm on the cemetary at 4am. Don't let the insurgents' act of hiding in "sacred" targets give them a tactical advantage. Lives are more important than stone monuments. They probably let half the militia get away during that 2 day firefight in addition to wasting the lives of troops.