Nearly 20 Killed In Fighting In Tal Afar, Al-Fallujah

(file photo) 9 September 2004 -- Doctors in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar say at least 17 people were killed overnight and more than 50 wounded in fighting between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi forces.

The U.S. military says the operation was carried out to restore control of the town to what it called "legitimate Iraqi government officials."

Tal Afar is located about 450 kilometers north of the capital Baghdad. In Al-Fallujah early today, Iraqi doctors say at least eight people, four of them children and two women, were killed by a U.S. air strike.

A U.S. military statement said the raid targeted a building suspected of being used by associates of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born militant accused by the U.S. of having links to Al-Qaeda.

(Reuters/AFP/AP)