And as usual, the media has under-reported this story of US and Iraqi troops cleaning out the bad guys. I guess because our side did not have a large amount of casualites it was not considered worthy. But think about it, a force of 8,500 is rather large in post war Iraq. And the battle lasted several days. I think a couple hudred insurgents were killed and something like 150 or more were captured. To me this looks like a huge successful operation.
Wooohooooo! Glad to see we're finally taking the fight to the bad guys again!
Deploy the tunnel rats and mop up - no backing off, no mercy for these killers.
tunnels?
deploy Moab
Good guys win again. Is it just me, or is there a new report every day of the Free Iraqi forces taking major roles in anti-terrorist operations? It seems like the Iraqis are starting to carry their share of the load. That is a very promising sign.
Looks like not many of the enemy fled.
Read:
A Fresh Offensive in Tal Afar
http://billroggio.com/archives/2005/09/a_fresh_offensi.php
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Hawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!
I guess it depends on what one deems 'many,' but I'm skeptical of accounts that claim significant numbers of insurgents have escaped. The U.S. and Iraqi armies spent a couple of months building berms and cutting off potential routes of egress from Tal Afar. The best guess of killed/captured enemy fighters (200/220), combined with the initial estimates of enemy strength (350-500), even if somewhat inaccurate, would indicate that few of the fighters made it out. The city is considered about 80% secured last I heard, so there's probably more enemy still there to deal with.
Find, Fix, DESTROY.