By American accounts, two days of delays in installing a new local administration stemmed from unfinished work in the provincial government to choose a new mayor and put together a 600-man police force for Tall Afar, a city of about 250,000 people located about 60 miles from the Syrian border.
The officers said they hoped the still-unidentified mayor would be installed Tuesday or Wednesday at a castle that serves as Tall Afar's city hall. Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia, which is responsible for Tall Afar, and Duraid Kashmoula, governor of Nineveh province, would likely attend the ceremony, the officers said.
"There's basically a power vacuum right now," said Army Capt. Nathan Terra. "That's why we're keeping people out" of the city.
"If we don't," he added, "the bad guys will go right back in and we'll have to do this all over again."
The U.S. actions in Tall Afar are part of a larger strategy to reestablish control over restive areas of Iraq before elections scheduled for January. U.S. officials say that strong local authority and security are crucial for successful elections.
On Monday, U.S. troops pulled back to a forward operating base on the outskirts of Tall Afar and were no longer operating continuously inside the city, Army Maj. Thomas Osteen said. Troops who patrolled Tall Afar described a ghost town that was devoid of traffic and had few people on the streets.
Local officials and the U.S. military estimate that 50,00 to 100,000 residents fled the recent fighting in Tall Afar. Many remain in camps outside the city set up by the Iraqi Red Crescent Society.
There are conflicting reports on the number of casualties from the fighting, in which U.S. ground troops attacked and F-15 and F-16 jets dropped 500- and 2,000-pound bombs on what the U.S. military said were insurgent positions near one of the main roads at Tall Afar's northern boundary.
Task Force Olympia has said 67 insurgents were killed. The provincial branch of the Iraqi Health Ministry said 42 Iraqis have been killed since last Thursday, including an undetermined number of women and children.
Terra acknowledged that there were civilian casualties but said most of the dead were combatants. He said that as many as 104 insurgents were killed.
The fighting has shaken the region's complex political structure. The town, a transit point between the oil center of Mosul and the Syrian border, is populated mostly by ethnic Turkmens, bitter rivals of the Kurds who also reside in Iraq's northern region. The bombing has drawn protests from the Turkish government.
