Iraqi rebels flee assault through tunnels

INSURGENTS fled to the countryside through a network of tunnels to escape an Iraqi-US force that reported killing about 150 rebels while storming the militant bastion of Tal Afar.

Following the guerrilla retreat on Sunday, the city has been swept clear of extremists for the second time in a year. Military leaders vowed to crush insurgents along the Syrian border and the Euphrates River valley.

“Tal Afar is just one piece of an overarching operation. We are not going to tolerate a safe haven anywhere in Iraq,” said Army Major General Rick Lynch, deputy chief of staff for coalition forces in Iraq.

Iraqi Defence Minister Sadoun al-Dulaimi warned: “The Syrians have to stop sending destruction to Iraq. We know the terrorists have no other gateway to Iraq but Syria.”

The US and Iraq maintain Syria’s government does little to stop the flow of Arab fighters across the border.

Militants elsewhere killed one US soldier and a British soldier in separate roadside bombings on Sunday and assassinated an official in Iraq’s Interior Ministry.

A Task Force Liberty soldier was killed and two were wounded on a patrol near Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.

In Basra, a British soldier was killed and three were wounded in an attack on their convoy.

Police said Major General Adnan Abdul Rihman, the Interior Ministry’s director of police training, was shot dead at his Baghdad home.

Tal Afar was cleared of militants a year ago, but insurgents moved back when US troop numbers were reduced. US warplanes bombed suspected militant targets in the city last week, and the assault was launched early on Saturday by 5,000 Iraqi soldiers and 3,500 US troops. By Sunday night, the joint force reported 156 insurgents killed and 246 captured. It said troops found a bomb factory, 18 weapons caches and a network of tunnels beneath Tal Afar’s Sarai neighbourhood.

“The terrorists had seen it coming (and prepared) tunnel complexes to be used as escape routes,” Maj Gen Lynch said.

The al-Qaida leader in Iraq, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, purportedly urged his fighters to prepare for a “final” battle in a tape posted on the internet on Sunday. The recording claimed the insurgents inflicted casualties on allied troops in the Tal Afar battle. Most residents fled, and tens of thousands are living in tent cities. Food, water and medical supplies are scarce.