From The Associated Press:
"America is the enemy of God," fighters shouted.
Explosions and heavy machine-gun fire rocked Najaf for hours, and bands of gunmen carrying assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar tubes roamed the city. After a lull, sporadic firing resumed as night fell.
Four holes, each approximately 12 inches long and 8 inches wide, could be seen on the golden dome of the Imam Ali mosque, burial place of Imam Ali Ibn Abu Talib, the Prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law and the Shiites' most revered saint.
The mosque, in the middle of Najaf, is about 100 miles south of Baghdad on a high desert plateau overlooking the world's largest cemetery.
Militia members blamed the Americans for the damage to the mosque, but Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said al-Sadr's men were probably responsible: "I can just tell you by the looks of where we were firing and where Muqtada's militia was firing, I would put my money that Muqtada caused it."
Of course the militia is going to blame the American forces. You don't actually expect them to take responsibility for something like this, do you?
Who cares if one of their mosques got damaged? If they don't want them to be damaged then maybe they should stop attacking our soldiers from them. They're using the things like forts. If we're going to engage the enemy we cannot wait for them to exit their strongholds first.
We should try to be careful where we can, but if the fighting takes the troops around some holy sites then our troops need to be able to do what needs to be done.