IRAQ - Sep 12 - Army Kills 157 In Rebel Town.

The Iraqi army kills 157 suspected terrorists in rebel Tal Afar, a Defence Ministry official says, as troops continue mopping up suspects in the northern town. Iraqi PM Ibrahim Jaafari defied a $100,000 bounty on his head to visit the scene of the insurgency, while a senior officer in Tal Afar said he expected the fighting to be over by Sep 15. The Iraqi army, backed up by US troops, launched an assault early on Sep 10 against an estimated 350-500 insurgents in the town near the Syrian border. "Operations are still ongoing, we are moving into Sarai", Abdelaziz Jasim, the defence ministry official in charge of operations in Tal Afar, told a news briefing in Baghdad, referring to a central district at the heart of the insurgency. "We are nearly in control of western areas of the city. Overall 157 terrorists have been killed and 291 arrested since the beginning of the operations", he added. "We have cleared Sarai totally and now we will clear other neighbourhoods", a senior officer in Tal Afar, who gave his name only as Colonel Khalaf, told Reuters. "Under our plan, by Sep 15 the city should be clear and safe." On Sep 11, Iraq closed part of its border with Syria. The US and Iraq say Tal Afar is a staging-post for foreign fighters and military equipment from Syria on their way to cities across central Iraq. The Kurdish- and Shi'ite-Muslim led Iraqi government is facing an insurgency by Sunni Arabs, with daily bombings and attacks across the country. The Iraqi army lost its first soldier in the fighting on Sep 12, Jasim said, adding that six civilians had also died. He said the rebels were well prepared for the assault-the army found 41 weapons caches and even an "advanced medical treatment centre for their own casualties". Iraqi Captain Mohammad Abdulallah, in Tal Afar, said the town effectively fell on Sep 10. "We usually surround a neighbourhood and then start a house-to-house search operation, because militarily the city fell two days ago but now we are running a cleansing operation from street to street and house to house", he said. "We are facing some resistance from terrorists who are hiding in houses and streets and other terrorists trying to escape". Iraqi troops in Tal Afar said rebels were booby-trapping civilian homes with explosives to harm soldiers raiding them. Interior Minister Bayan Jabor told a news briefing in Baghdad that at least 10 houses had been blown up by such devices and Sarai was full of them. But he added Jaafari had given orders to take special care to protect civilian lives. "This is the first clean military operation that has ever happened in Iraq", he said, adding that the government had put aside $50m for rebuilding Tal Afar after the fighting. Jaafari arrived in Tal Afar himself on Sep 12, disregarding a bounty of $100,000 placed on his head by Iraqi militant group The Islamic Army in Iraq for ordering the assault. The government has made much of the fact that for the first time since the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 the Iraqi army is playing the lead role in the fighting, while the US plays a support role. Pres Jalal Talabani said in Washington on Sep 11 that Iraq had enough troops to take over front line duties from the US and that US troops should not have to make daily sacrifices. "It's our duty to sacrifice for our people and for our country", he said, in words designed to ease pressure on Pres Bush, who faces increasing calls to withdraw US troops. Iraq has warned it will also go after insurgents in four other towns in western Iraq-Ramadi, Qaim, Samarra and Rawa-and other parts of north western Iraq.