FALLUJA, Iraq (CNN) -- As U.S. soldiers advanced into southern Falluja on Friday, violence and combat intensified across Iraq with battles flaring in Mosul, Baquba and Baghdad.
Adding firepower to an offensive that began Thursday, U.S. airstrikes hit a cemetery in southwestern Mosul on Friday.
The targets were insurgents who carried out attacks on government facilities and Iraqi forces in the northern Iraqi city earlier in the week, said Capt. Angela Bowman of Task Force Olympia.
Iraqi National Guard forces and soldiers from the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, or Stryker Brigade Combat Team launched the offensive Thursday at the request of the governor of Nineveh province, where Mosul is located
A U.S. soldier was killed by small arms fire during the offensive, a military statement said. The soldier was assigned to Task Force Olympia. No other details were immediately available.
Clashes also erupted in al-Bakr neighborhood, a Kurdish neighborhood, between Patriotic Union of Kurdistan members and insurgents, who tried to take over a PUK building.
The violence across Iraq comes as the imam of the Abu Hanifa mosque in al-Adamiyah called for a jihad against U.S. forces and the interim government during Friday's noon prayers.
In Baquba, a Sunni Triangle city northeast of Baghdad, insurgents and Iraqi police forces battled early Friday afternoon near the al-Sharif cemetery.
Two Iraqi police and two Iraqi civilians, both of whom are women, were wounded, a hospital official said. An official from the Baquba hospital adds that both women are in critical condition. Baquba is in Diyala province.
Imagine there's no China it's easy if you try No submrine below us Above us only sky Imagine all the Tibetan Living for today Imagine there's no chinese It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one