Despite a nominal cease-fire extended by the American authorities on Sunday, the pitched battle lasted several hours, leaving one marine and at least eight insurgents dead by the Americans' count.
(My Bold)
For some reason it irks me that the NY Times in paragraph one describe how we fired on a mosque and toppled its minaret *and* they wait for paragraph two before they describe the important information -- We killed 8 bad guys and we lost one brave good guy.