Yahoo! News - Up to 12 U.S. Marines Die in Worsening Iraq Violence
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces grappled with Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim rebels in Iraq on Wednesday after up to 12 U.S. Marines and dozens of Iraqis were killed in Sunni towns in violence coinciding with a radical Shi'ite uprising.

In Falluja, where Marines were pursuing a major crackdown after last week's killings of four American private security guards, doctors said 36 people were killed on Tuesday.

Among the dead were 25 civilians in a house destroyed by what locals said was a U.S. helicopter strike. A U.S. military spokeswoman in Baghdad said she had no word on the incident.

Elsewhere in Iraq, followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr fought gun battles with foreign troops in the southern cities of Nassiriya, Amara and Kut on Tuesday and vowed to pursue a revolt that has claimed over 130 lives in three days.