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Iraq Transition

Tal Afar: Ghost town under siege

'Curse this terrorism. We've been destroyed enough,' sheik says

By Arwa Damon
CNN

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U.S. troops talk to Iraqis in Tal Afar. Many residents avoid leaving their homes because of insurgents.
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TAL AFAR, Iraq (CNN) -- "Wakhrou min houn" is a semi-rude way to tell someone to get lost in Arabic, but it's what Miriam Elias, a Turkmen Shiite married to a Sunni, said to four insurgents trying to launch an attack on an Iraqi army post from near her home in northeastern Tal Afar.

"They left," she says, laughing nervously. "My son was very upset with me. He said they could have killed, slaughtered me for saying that."

Elias, a mother of seven, says she did not know who the men behind the masks launching the attacks were.

Her 9-year-old daughter, Abeer, speaks softly about her schoolmate who was hit by a bullet or shrapnel in another incident and had to go to the hospital.

Food rations are scarce. Elias says rations allow the family to have rice only twice a week.

Since her husband shut down his glass and trinket store three months ago because of the violence, they have had no source of income.

Conditions are similar throughout Tal Afar -- a city of 200,000 in extreme northwestern Iraq only 40 miles (60 kilometers) from the Syrian border -- where entire neighborhoods are in the grip of insurgents.

The city is so dangerous U.S. troops move around only in 30-ton Bradley fighting vehicles and tanks. In recent weeks the U.S. military has increased the number of troops in the region to about 4,000.

Most people rarely venture from their homes. Streets are deserted. Vehicle traffic is almost nonexistent. Storefronts are shut. For those who knew Tal Afar before, it is a painful memory.

"It pains me to visit this area and hear the news of terror and killing and kidnapping," says Khosro Goran, the provincial deputy governor, who has survived four assassination attempts.

"I remember a year ago when we walked in the streets of Tal Afar with perfect ease and freedom, without fear and without spite."

"Tal Afar is a ghost town," Goran tells a weekend meeting of tribal leaders and officials from the Iraqi army, U.S. military and the local government.

Debate at the meeting is heated about how to handle the violence.

"All of you know the neighborhoods that harbor terrorists, the tribes that have terrorists and those that don't," says Iman Hashim Antar.

A mortar round killed Antar's brother after the imam told his congregation the violence was the work of terrorists, not insurgents.

At his brother's funeral, another mortar attack killed three other brothers and wounded two members of the funeral procession.

"Why can't we work together? Can't there be cannon fire or a plane that will fire and rid us of this?" Antar says.

Gen. Khosid al-Dosek, commander of the Iraqi army division in the area, urges patience and a peaceful solution.

"All of Iraq is wounded, but it takes patience for us to be able to cure this wound," al-Dosek says.

"Curse this terrorism. We've been destroyed enough," Sheik Walee Cholaq cries.

About two weeks ago, twin suicide car bombs detonated near Cholaq's home as tribal members gathered to congratulate him on having survived an assassination attempt a few days before. The bombings killed at least 20 and wounded more than 40.

Al-Dosek asks the sheiks, "Are you looking for a military solution?"

About half the room raise their hands.

U.S. officials are working with the Iraqi army to encourage people to provide information to root out insurgents one by one so they won't have to resort to a major military action.

"The preferred solution is for the people to tell us where the terrorists are, and for us to go after the terrorists. We've been getting quite a bit of information, and that's want we want to do," says Lt. Col. Christopher Hickey, commander of the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

"When they say a military solution, they are referring to Falluja. Whereas if you take a military force in here, unfortunately that could result in a lot of destruction to the city," Hickey says.

"And we want to solve this in a more precise way where we don't end up destroying the city."

Military commanders say rebuilding the police force is one of their top priorities.

Tal Afar's police force disintegrated last fall when insurgents overran the police stations.

The city's 200 policemen remain behind the walls of an old Ottoman fortress the force uses as its headquarters.

"Do you think that I can go out in this?" asks one police officer, grabbing at his telltale blue uniform shirt. "I wouldn't make it down that road before I would be killed."

"We don't have flak vests. We don't have ammunition. We don't have weapons. Where can we go?" he says.

Inside, Col. Hickey talks to 8-year-old Ibrahim Daoud Ibrahim, who was wounded by shrapnel that morning, and his father.

The boy was treated at a local clinic because his father was too frightened to take him to Tal Afar's only hospital.

Hickey offers to escort them to the hospital. But even after promising that the military would also escort them back, Ibrahim's father declines.


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