2006年VOA标准英语-US Commander: Insurgents Driven from Tal A

（单词翻译）

By Meredith Buel
Washington
27 January 2006

A senior U.S. military commander in Iraq says coalition¹ and Iraqi forces have driven insurgents² from the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, and that reconstruction³ of the area is well under way.  Army Colonel H.R. McMaster made the remarks during a teleconference from Iraq.

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US Marine⁴, left, patrols with soldiers of Iraqi Army in streets in Iraq  
  

Colonel McMaster says when his forces first arrived in northern Iraq last May, insurgents, including foreign fighters and Saddam loyalists, had choked the life out of the region by conducting systematic⁵ attacks throughout the area.

McMaster says many of the insurgents infiltrated⁶ the city of Tal Afar, which lies about 60 kilometers from porous⁷ Syrian border.

"What the enemy really needed to do is intimidate⁸ the population in the area, to give them safe-haven⁹ so people would be afraid to cooperate with our forces or Iraqi security forces trying to bring security to the area," he said.  "They also hoped to incite¹⁰ sectarian violence, which they did by collapsing¹¹ the police force, turning the police force, in effect, into a sectarian militia¹² that further fed the cycle of sectarian violence."

A turning point came last September when, for the first time, U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces took the lead in a major military operation against insurgents in Tal Afar.

Colonel McMaster says the Iraqi army and police forces backed by U.S. troops successfully drove most of the foreign fighters out of the area.

"As a result of our combined efforts with Iraqi security forces, some brave Iraqi leaders, soldiers and police I am happy to report to you that the situation in Tal Afar, and in western Niniweh, has fundamentally changed," he added.  "What we have been able to achieve there together alongside our Iraqi brothers is to bring life back to this area, to rekindle¹³ hope."

Colonel McMaster says the success at Tal Afar means that a major staging area has now been taken from those dedicated¹⁴ to the defeat of coalition forces and the new Iraqi government.

"This was an important physical defeat for the enemy because they lost this safe haven and support base in an area they hoped to use to destabilize the northern region of Iraq," he explained.  "It was also a very important psychological defeat to the enemy, because people now understand that these anti-Iraqi forces want Iraq to fail."

Colonel McMaster says basic services, such as water and electricity, have now been restored in Tal Afar, and people in the city feel safe to move around the region.

He says in the recent Iraqi elections some 90 percent of eligible¹⁵ voters went to the polls.