Crowds plead with US forces in Tal Afar
Find a Conversation
| Mon, 09-13-2004 - 6:10pm |
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Besieged%20City
Monday, September 13, 2004 · Last updated 11:35 a.m. PT
Crowds plead with U.S. forces in Tal Afar
By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF TAL AFAR -- U.S. troops barred anguished crowds from returning to their homes in the besieged city of Tal Afar on Monday as residents described corpses scattered across orchards and the collapse of essential services such as water and electricity.
American troops and Iraqi forces on Sunday overran Tal Afar, one of several Iraqi cities they say had fallen into the hands of insurgents, after a nearly two-week siege that forced scores of residents to flee and left a trail of devastated buildings and rubble.
Crowds of men desperate to learn the fate of their loved ones and check on their homes pleaded with American troops manning a checkpoint on the city's outskirts to let them through. But soldiers only stepped aside for a few medical relief workers and regional officials.
"It's for their own safety," 1st Lt. Neal Erickson of Task Force Olympia, which controls the area, said at the checkpoint.
Hazem Saleh, deputy head of the Kurdish Democratic Party - one of the main U.S. allies in northern Iraq - said there were not enough police and paramilitary forces to secure the city amid concerns of possible looting and chaos as thousands of people stream back to their homes.
Saleh, speaking by telephone from his party's headquarters in Tal Afar, said the city was quiet Monday but that health, water and electricity services had ceased to function.
"There are still bodies lying in the battlefields, orchards" and dry river beds, said Saleh, adding that the dead included militants and civilians.
"Who would take them away?" he added, "There's no hospital or government offices working."
U.S. commanders said they moved in on Tal Afar at the behest of regional officials who lost control of the city, populated mainly by Iraq's ethnic Turkish minority known as Turkmen. American intelligence believed Tal Afar had become a haven for militants smuggling men and arms from across the Syrian border.
Turkmen officials have said that 58 people were killed during a 12-day assault by U.S. and Iraqi government forces. Turkmen residents who fled the city to nearby Mosul spoke of bodies lying under the hot sun and wrecked buildings.
Saleh said U.S. and Iraqi forces are hunting for remaining militants in the city's orchards, private homes and government offices. But most of the insurgents are believed to have fled with their guns.
The all-male crowd standing across from a checkpoint outside Tal Afar said Monday that they had been coming there every day at dawn for 10 days and staying until sunset in hopes of being allowed through.
"We only want to go and check on our homes. We are afraid of the looters taking everything," said 40-year-old Suleiman Hussein.
The Iraqi Red Crescent has set up three camps in nearby villages to house displaced families. Thousands of others have sought refuge in mosques or moved in with friends or relatives in Mosul and elsewhere.
At the camps, the Turkmen are given rice, bread, vegetables, cookies and water. But there are no toilets or electricity.
Turkiya Afandi, 30, sat cross-legged on the floor of her tent and cooked tiny pieces of eggplant on a small grill she managed to bring with her as she and her husband and four children left Tal Afar in the back of a truck.
"It's hard here, but I am in peace because there are no tanks and planes firing at us," she said.







http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Turkey%20US%20Iraq
Monday, September 13, 2004 · Last updated 2:19 p.m. PT
Turkey threatens to end U.S. cooperation
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said on Monday he had warned U.S. officials that Ankara would stop cooperating with the United States in Iraq if American forces continued to harm the Turkish minority in northern Iraq.
Gul said he spoke to Secretary of State Colin Powell "and told him that what is being done there is harming the civilian population, that it is wrong, and that if it continues, Turkey's cooperation on issues regarding Iraq will come to a total stop."
"We have conveyed this very openly. ... Of course we won't limit ourselves to words. We never shy away from carrying out whatever is necessary," he added.
American troops and Iraqi forces on Sunday overran Tal Afar, one of several Iraqi cities they say had fallen into the hands of insurgents, after a nearly two-week siege that forced scores of residents to flee.
Residents said corpses were scattered across orchards and that essential services such as water and electricity had collapsed. They described a trail of devastated buildings and rubble.
Gul did not elaborate and it was not clear if he was hinting that Turkey might intervene in the region. Gul also did not say when the conversation with Powell took place.
Hundreds of Turkish trucks haul goods for U.S. soldiers and for the Iraqi people each day from Turkey.
U.S. officials have said the United States was taking efforts to avoid civilian casualties and to insure that humanitarian aid can reach the area.
Turkey has expressed concern of late about what it views as efforts by Iraqi Kurds to claim northern cities, such as Tal Afar and Kirkuk - where ethnic Turks are concentrated - in the run-up to a scheduled census in October.
Turkey has fought for decades to suppress a Kurdish uprising in the southeast of the country, which borders Kurdish regions of Iraq.