Iraqi, U.S. Troops Sweep Into Tal Afar

"TAL AFAR, Iraq (AP) - U.S. and Iraqi troops swept into the insurgent stronghold of Tal Afar early Saturday, conducting house-to-house searches and battering down walls with armored vehicles in a second bid to clean the city of militant fighters.

Some 30 miles south of Baghdad, meanwhile, police found the bodies of 18 men who had been handcuffed and shot to death in Iskandariya, a town where dozens of killings have been reported in escalating vengeance killings by Shiite Muslim and Sunni Aram "death squads."

"Two days ago gunmen in police uniforms broke into their houses in a Shiite neighborhood of Iskandariya," police Capt. Adel Kitab said of the latest victims."
MyWay