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Tal Afar voters undeterred by mortar attacks

Dec-16-2005 » Filed Under: TF Freedom

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By Monte Morin, Stars and Stripes

TAL AFAR, Iraq — Crowds of Iraqi voters, many of them women, poured into the streets of this ancient city and lined up to vote Thursday, despite sporadic mortar attacks that killed at least three people and injured eight.

Voting queues stretched around corners and doubled back again as festive election season music blared on boom boxes and colored streamers hung from wires suspended over city streets.

“Thank God — this is like a wedding to us,” an Iraqi man told Capt. Jesse Sellars, as U.S. troops walked among crowds of children and voters in the city’s mixed Shiite and Sunni neighborhood of Al Mua’almeen.

Sellars, the commander of Fox Troop, Sabre Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, spent much of the day speeding between polling sites in a clattering Bradley fighting vehicle. While U.S. forces sought to maintain a low profile, and were barred from entering polling sites, Abrams tanks took position at key intersections and a pair of Kiowa helicopters flew high above the city.

In nearby Mosul, authorities reported that insurgents had targeted polling sites with a bicycle bomb and another improvised explosive. No further details of the bombings were available by early afternoon. [...]


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