TAL AFAR (Iraq), Sept 11: Sporadic fighting flared in this northern Iraqi town on Sunday as American and Iraqi troops pressed home an all-out assault to recapture Tal Afar from guerrillas, sending thousands of residents fleeing. The US military said it expected to be in full control of the town in days following its largest counter-insurgency operation since a massive offensive against the rebel-held town of Fallujah, just west of Baghdad, last November.

An Internet statement in the name of an Al Qaeda-linked group threatened to retaliate against US forces with chemical weapons if the operation did not end within 24 hours but its authenticity could not be verified.

The Iraqi Red Crescent said up to 7,000 families were fleeing the fighting in Tal Afar, a town between Mosul and the Syrian border that US commanders say has become a major staging post for foreign fighters.

The US military said more than 141 “terrorists” had been killed in the town since late August and another 211 captured, along with weapons caches.

On Sunday, US and Iraqi troops were combing Sunni Arab neighbourhoods of the town for insurgents and arresting any men who had had remained in their homes despite an ultimatum to leave.

Sporadic fighting was continuing in the Saray and Kadissiyah districts as some rebels armed with light weapons and rocket-propelled grenades battled security forces, US sergeant Clarence McKaine said.

The internet statement posted in the name of the Jaish al-Taefa al-Mansura, or Army of the Victorious Community, warned of reprisal attacks using “non-conventional and chemical weapons ... developed by the mujahedeen... unless the armed onslaught against the city of Tal Afar stops within 24 hours.”

The Iraqi Red Crescent warned the humanitarian situation in the town was “critical” and reported a mass exodus of between 5,000 and 7,000 families.

Jaafari insisted the offensive was not aimed at any particular ethnic group in the town, which is divided between Sunni Arabs and Shiite Turkmen, some of whom have fled in recent months complaining of persecution by the Sunni Arab rebels.

But the town’s Sunni Arab mayor Mohammed Rasheed tendered his resignation in protest at an operation that he said was “targeting Sunni neighbourhoods.”—AFP