IRAQ: Iraqi and US troops seized control of an insurgent stronghold in northern Iraq yesterday after militants fled, leaving dozens dead and hundreds wounded.
Infantry, backed by aircraft and tanks, encountered little resistance when they entered the city of Tal Afar after a two-day offensive, although troops found entire districts had been abandoned by the civilian population.
The Iraqi government hailed what it said was an Iraqi-led operation that showed the growing confidence and capability of the country's fledgling army. It promised there would be fresh offensives against other insurgent strongholds in coming weeks. "We say to our people, we are coming," said Sadoun al-Dulaimi, the defence minister.
A joint US-Iraqi operation codenamed Operation Cyclone also started yesterday in Rutbah, a town near the Jordanian border, and further north soldiers closed the Rabiyah border crossing with Syria, an alleged transit point for guerrillas.
The US military said more than 141 insurgents were killed and 211 suspects captured during the offensive in Tal Afar and its two-week build-up. "There's no areas they are controlling, they are either on the run or dead," said Maj Robert Molinari, a US commander.
About 5,000 Iraqi troops and a 3,500-strong US force from the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment encircled the city late last month. Sporadic resistance on Saturday claimed the lives of five Iraqi soldiers, a light toll for one of the biggest military engagements in months. But there was evidence that the Iraqi army's role was inflated and that its leadership is still dogged by corruption, betrayal and sectarianism.
State television lauded the operation for giving Iraqis the lead, with Americans in support, but one source close to US commanders in Nineveh province said that US firepower was decisive and that images of Iraqis searching houses were largely cosmetic.
More seriously, the source said a senior Iraqi commander was arrested on August 31st on suspicion of selling information and material to insurgents. Troops who raided his compound allegedly found 70 Iraqi army vehicles, 150 AK-47 assault rifles and $70,000.
A senior commander from another brigade was reprimanded for expelling Kurds from his mainly Shia Arab unit, a blow to US efforts to create units that bridge ethnic and sectarian divides. Several Iraqi officers, who declined to be named, said they had heard reports of the two incidents. The defence ministry was unavailable for comment.
In a further sign of fragility, a senior government official in Mosul, a volatile northern regional capital, said that only 3,000 of the 13,000-strong police force actually showed up for work. That contradicted US claims to have rebuilt the force since it collapsed last November during an insurgent onslaught.
Witnesses to the fighting in Tal Afar, a staging post for militants crossing the Syrian border, said US and Iraqi forces were fired on from a mosque and a hospital, as well as from the warrens of streets and alleys in the city's Sunni districts.
The Iraqi Red Crescent said between 5,000 and 7,000 families had fled, many heading for a 500-tent camp set up in Abu Maria, 12 miles east of Tal Afar.
In southern Iraq a roadside bomb struck a British army Land Rover near Basra, killing one British soldier and wounding three others. The British Ministry of Defence withheld their identities until next-of-kin were notified. The attack followed three bombings last week which killed two British soldiers, four American security guards and 16 Iraqi civilians, a surge in violence in a relatively quiet region.