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Tal Afar drive targets insurgents

Baghdad airport reopens after pay dispute

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. and Iraqi soldiers have been going from house to house in the restive northern city of Tal Afar to ferret out militants in an operation that will continue until it is "freed from insurgents," military officials said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces, traveling in Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, on Saturday swept through one-third of the city, where U.S. and Iraqi forces have been sparring with militants in recent weeks.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, in a printed announcement and later in remarks at a news conference, said he ordered the offensive "to remove all remaining terrorist elements from the city of Tel Afar" and stressed that residents and leaders there who are fed up with insurgents "asked us to intervene."

Defense Minister Sadoun al-Dulaimi, appearing at the press conference with al-Jaafari and other Cabinet ministers, said the planning for this ultimate siege has been going on over the weeks as Iraqi and U.S. forces massed on the city -- a largely Turkmen city in Nineveh province.

"The basic military operation to purge the city of Tal Afar from the terrorists, the killers has started today," al-Dulaimi said.

There had been efforts to remove the insurgency from the city in a peaceful manner, al-Dulaimi said, but fighting persisted just the same. Over the last two days, for example, 140 insurgents have been killed and more than 190 detained. Thirteen weapons caches have been discovered.

Five Iraqi soldiers have been killed and three injured in the operation.

Al-Dulaimi said he thought the operation -- focusing on two neighborhoods where insurgents are concentrated -- would last a few days and he promised similar operations in other Iraqi cities, even though the scale of the push was not the size of the one in Falluja last November.

Al-Dulaimi said there had been requests for similar actions in other places and said he wanted to tell the citizens in Ramadi, Qaim, and Samarra that "we are coming."

"There won't be any hideout for the terrorists and killers in these cities," said al-Dulaimi, who said in the next few weeks "we are going to carry out similar operations."

He called the Tal Afar operation "a good experiment for the Iraqi forces. It is an urban warfare experiment. And we are going to carry out such operations in any Iraqi city that does not abide by the rules of law."

The press conference -- with al-Dulaimi, al-Jaafari and three other Cabinet ministers -- was a relatively rare ministerial show of force with the government officials letting the country know they were united on the issue of combating the insurgency in Tal Afar.

The ministers talked about basic services for the people and measures to compensate citizens for damage done to their homes during the operation and provide food and medical care to the people of the area.

Citizens in the affected areas have been evacuated by officials, who have used bullhorns and broadcasting to urge citizens to get out of harm's way.

Initially, exchanges of gunfire and sniper fire could be heard in the city, but U.S. military officials in charge of the operation say they are encountering less resistance than expected.

Officials have set down a stiff curfew as the military push goes on; no one is allowed to leave their home. All shops and residences appear to be closed in the city and barbed wire can be seen across roads throughout the city.

Insurgents have established a presence in Tal Afar over the year because of its proximity to Syria and its logical location as a big-city hideout, observers believe.

Contractual dispute

Meanwhile on Saturday, Baghdad International Airport reopened after a brief shutdown prompted by a payment dispute with a British contractor that had been providing security services.

A Transportation Ministry official said Global Strategies Group has resumed its work at the airport after an agreement was forged between the government's ministers council and the company.

The dispute involved pay.

Global Strategies said it had not been paid for seven of the 16 months it has provided security there. Under this latest agreement, the company accepted a $12 million payment offer by the ministers council, the ministry official said.

Giles Morgan, a spokesman for Global, said the Iraqi government had agreed to make a payment to Global for half of the total money it is owed, but said "this payment does not cover the groups costs for work to date." The company is waiting to see how further discussions proceed.

"Pending the results of payment and the results of further discussions Global continues security operations at the airport," Morgan said.

Global suspended operations on Thursday, prompting the airport to close.

Other developments

An al Qaeda in Iraq "terrorist safe house" in the western town of Ubaydi where an insurgent leader might have been holed up was destroyed in a coalition airstrike on Saturday, the U.S. military said.

Police in Hilla investigating the execution-style slayings of 18 people near Iskandariya south of Baghdad were ambushed on Friday, leaving two officers dead and nine others wounded, according to emergency police in Baghdad.

Gunmen on Saturday opened fire on workers heading to their jobs at a U.S. military base in Khalis and killed four people, police said. The incident took place in the village of Aswad nearly 30 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of Baquba. The dead were described as civilians. Four other people were wounded as well. Baquba and Khalis are in Diyala province north of Baghdad.

The U.S. military presence in Iraq will be greatly reduced in two years, with troops based there only to intimidate neighbors, Iraq President Jalal Talabani said Friday during a visit to Washington.

The U.S. National Guard was hindered in its ability to respond to Hurricane Katrina because many of its forces and vehicles were in Iraq, military and civilian officials told The Associated Press Friday. According to the AP, one general said the effort was delayed by "arguably" a day. (Full story)

An American contractor rescued by coalition forces Wednesday after 10 months in captivity departed Iraq for the United States aboard a military plane Friday. (Full story)Roy Hallums, who was freed along with an Iraqi from a farmhouse south of Baghdad based on a tip from an Iraqi detainee, departed from Balad Air Base on a U.S. Air Force C-17, according to a U.S. military statement.

CNN's Enes Dulami, Mike Mount and Kianne Sadeq contributed to this report.

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