Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

U.S.-Iraqi force steps up pressure in Tal Afar, 200 suspected insurgents caught | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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The mother of three killed Iraqis, and their sister react while bodies are brought to the morgue. Police have found 16 unidentified bodies near a farming town south of Baghdad and on the capital’s outskirts, 8 September, 2005 (AP


The mother of three killed Iraqis, and their sister react while bodies are brought to the morgue. Police have found 16 unidentified bodies near a farming town south of Baghdad and on the capital's outskirts, 8 September, 2005 (AP

The mother of three killed Iraqis, and their sister react while bodies are brought to the morgue. Police have found 16 unidentified bodies near a farming town south of Baghdad and on the capital’s outskirts, 8 September, 2005 (AP

TAL AFAR, Iraq (AP) – A joint U.S.-Iraqi force punched deep into Tal Afar, a key insurgent staging ground near the Syrian border, and the Iraqi army said it arrested 200 suspected militants in the sweep, three-fourths of them foreign fighters.

Most of the estimated civilian population of 200,000 have now fled this predominantly Turkmen city, where 70 percent of that ethnic group is Sunni Muslim, the sect that dominates the Iraqi insurgency.

The U.S. military reported killing seven insurgents over the past two days amid growing indications the joint force was preparing to intensify the operation.

The sweep in Tal Afar came as election officials tallied figures from three Sunni-dominated provinces, where the voter registration was extended a week in preparation for the Oct. 15 nationwide referendum on the new constitution.

&#34Turnout was unbelievable and people were very enthusiastic, especially in Fallujah and Ramadi,&#34 Farid Ayar, an electoral commission spokesman in Baghdad, siad Thursday. Those cities are Sunni insurgent bastions in Anbar province, which stretches west from Baghdad to the Syrian, Jordanian and Saudi borders.

The large voter signup suggests minority Sunnis are mobilizing to defeat the draft charter, a marked tactical shift from January, when their boycott of the parliamentary election handed control of the 275-member National Assembly to Shiites and Kurds.

The new basic law was approved and sent to voters by a coalition of Shiites and Kurds, over the objections of Sunni representatives, who fear it would allow the country to split into sectarian and ethnic mini-states. That could cut Sunnis out of Iraq”s enormous oil wealth.

The very Sunni clerics who railed last January against an election &#34under foreign military occupation&#34 are now urging their people to take part in both the referendum and the parliamentary balloting in December.

Rejection of the charter would mean elections in December for a new parliament under the rules of the interim constitution approved in March 2004. The new parliament would start the entire process of drafting a constitution from scratch.

Demographics are a big problem for the Sunni Arabs, an estimated 20 percent of Iraq”s 27 million people.

Sunnis form the majority in four of the 18 provinces, but their numbers are overwhelming in only two, Anbar and Salahuddin. Under election rules, a «no» vote by a two-thirds majority in any three provinces would defeat the referendum.

In Anbar and Salahuddin approximately 75 percent of eligible voters signed up by the Wednesday deadline, election officials said, while cautioning the tally was not final. The percentage figure changed throughout the day as more regions reported.

In Diyala, a Sunni majority province where the count was final, 417,000 of 750,000 eligible voters, or 56 percent, registered, according to Amir Latif, director of the provincial elections commission. He spoke from the provincial capital of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Sunnis also hold a majority in Ninevah province, home to Mosul,

Iraq”s third-largest city, and Tal Afar. But much of the Sunni population in the province is Kurdish and committed to the draft charter.

In the Tal Afar sweep, Iraqi army Capt. Mohammed Ahmed said one of the captured insurgents was Amr Omayer, an Iraqi who allegedly was the most-wanted militant in the city and the commander of all insurgent operations launched from there.

Ahmed said some of those arrested could not speak Arabic. &#34We believe they are Afghans, but we have not checked their nationalities so far,&#34 he said. The Arab-speaking captives were from Syria, Sudan, Yemen and Jordan, he said, adding that the approximately 50 Iraqis rounded up in the sweep carried fake identity papers.

The joint force has reported heavy fighting around the perimeter of the city for several days and deadly bombings that mainly have killed civilians. Iraqi authorities said 80 percent of the civilian population has fled the city, about 260 miles (418 kilometers) north of Baghdad and 35 miles (56 kilometers) from Syria.

&#34We ordered the families to evacuate the Sunni neighborhood of Sarai, which is believed the main stronghold of the insurgents,&#34 Ahmed said, suggesting it soon would be targeted in a major push.

Eight civilians were killed in the city Wednesday by a suicide car bomber at an Iraqi checkpoint, he said. The U.S. military is no stranger in Tal Afar, a haven for insurgents crossing into Iraq from Syria. After the ouster of Saddam Hussein, the United States installed a largely Shiite leadership in the city, including the mayor and much of the police force.

The Sunni majority complained of oppression by the government and turned to the insurgents, who are mainly Sunnis, for protection.

American forces swept through last fall, and the local police chief declared the city insurgent-free.

But after the operation, U.S. forces quickly scaled back, leaving behind only about 500 soldiers to coordinate with newly trained Iraqi forces. The joint force was unable to prevent insurgents from retaking entire neighborhoods.

An Iraqi boy holds a charred page of the holy Koran after a Shi'ite mosque was destroyed by an explosion in Baghdad, September 9, 2005 (REUTERS)

An Iraqi boy holds a charred page of the holy Koran after a Shi’ite mosque was destroyed by an explosion in Baghdad, September 9, 2005 (REUTERS)

Iraqi boys stand in front of a police burnt car following clashes between policemen and armed men in Baghdad 09 September 2005. One policeman was killed and five wounded in the attack (AFP)

Iraqi boys stand in front of a police burnt car following clashes between policemen and armed men in Baghdad 09 September 2005. One policeman was killed and five wounded in the attack (AFP)