Insurgents escape using Viet-Kong style tunnels

TAL AFAR, Iraq (AP) -- Fighting eased Sunday, the second day of a U.S. and Iraqi sweep through the militant stronghold of Tal Afar near the Syrian border, as insurgents melted into the countryside, many escaping through a tunnel network dug under an ancient northern city.

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

Lynch said operations in Tal Afar were part of a much larger, nationwide plan to destroy insurgent and al-Qaida bases, which included ongoing operations in Mosul, Qaim and the western town of Rutba.

The 8,500-strong Iraqi-U.S. force continued house-to-house searches, and military leaders said the assault would push all along the Syrian frontier and in the Euphrates River valley.
Cities and towns along the fabled river are bastions of the insurgency, a collection of foreign fighters and disaffected Sunni Muslims, many of them Saddam Hussein loyalists