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Tensions in the Iraqi town ran high, fueled by rumours that the explosion late Monday was the result of a missile strike, while US troops took to the streets to persuade angry residents they had no involvement in the explosion.
"We are not going to attack a mosque," Sergeant Jason McCain insisted, addressing a crowd of angry residents demanding explanations. "Unless someone is shooting at us, we are never going to shoot at a mosque."
The official US explanation for the blast strongly denied any involvement, suggesting in a statement that "the explosion was apparently related to a bomb-manufacturing class that was being taught inside the mosque."
The US account tallied with one rumour circulating in the town, that the mosque imam -- who was killed along with six people believed to be theology students -- was providing instruction in the use of rocket-propelled grenades.
The rockets, designed for knocking out tanks, have been the weapon of choice in a string of attacks on US positions in the flashpoint town, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad and a Sunni Muslim bastion.
In another part of town, US troops discussed the strike with locals gathered under the awning at the front of a welding workshop.
"If we had hit it with a missile, it would have destroyed the whole building and probably some of the houses around it," Sergeant Wettstein Grey told the crowd. "You've seen war, you know the kind of damage a missile causes."
"It was a surveillance plane," he insisted, responding to Iraqi claims they heard -- some say saw -- a US jet around the time of the explosion.
"Something inside there blew up," he added.
The town has been tense since US troops shot dead at least 16 protesters in April, with regular attacks ever since targeting their positions around a key power installation and the local government building.
The occupying troops, who face angry claims that they are deliberately withholding electricity, have been anxious not to inflame passions faced with the cultural sensitivities of operating in a Muslim country.
The US military statement said that forces "continue to be respectful of Muslim tradition by not entering the mosque" in the town while conducting inquiries.
Locals were split over the events of Monday night, with Sergeant Eric Viburs saying he had heard "a half dozen different things. Most people think it was something other than a US missile.
"Some people say it was ex-regime members who were creating some sort of bomb, others say it was a generator that blew up ... but they've heard this (missile) story. It gives them an excuse to fuel the flames," he said.
Iraqis' timings for the explosion vary over a period of hours, while the US forces insisted that talk of seeing a plane fire a missile was absurd.
One man claimed: "I saw a flame coming from a plane," earning a quick rebuttal from Grey: "No you didn't. It was at 35,000 feet, you would only have been able to see a dot in the sky."
But regardless of the explanation, residents remain angry, with a demonstration planned in the town on Friday to protest the latest incident.
"In two weeks, we will attack you and force you out of Iraq," one local Iraqi warned the circulating US troops, refusing to give his name.
Amid the talk from some of retribution, the US presence in the town was low-key. On one street corner, troops sat without their combat helmets, handing out the latest edition of the US-printed Iraq Today newspaper to locals.
At the site of the explosion in the mosque compound, people gathered to look at the rubble and a one-meter (three-foot) wide crater.
Abdul Rahman Abdel Kareem, a 20-year-old praying at the mosque for his brother who was among those killed, clung to the missile theory, as he passed worry beads through his fingers: "We heard a jet, an American jet."
Another bystander, Rasul Nabhan, 23, said it was a helicopter, denying US claims that the explosion was caused by bomb-making material.
"There were no munitions there. This is a mosque, it is a holy place and we cannot allow anything like that in a mosque."
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