"Don't try to equate Tal Afar with any previous operation" (ie, Fallujah)

[Bucky]

At 1pm this afternoon Reuters gives us this headline:

US mulls "decisive" attack on Iraqi rebel town

Then about thirty minutes ago, after mulling it all of five hours, this headline shows up from AP:

200 Suspected Militants Arrested in Iraq

Guess which town?

200 Suspected Militants Arrested in Iraq

A joint U.S.-Iraqi force punched deep into Tal Afar, a key insurgent staging ground near the Syrian border, and the Iraqi army said Thursday it arrested 200 suspected militants in the sweep — three-fourths of them foreign fighters.

Does this sound vaguely familiar to anyone? Well, do not be fooled. This is not Fallujah. Repeat, NOT Fallujah. From the first article:

Lynch added that U.S. and Iraqi forces had been trying to wipe out the insurgency in a series of operations since May, culminating in the operations of the last few days.

They have so far failed to put down rebellions, but Lynch said the growing number of U.S.-trained Iraqi government troops -- there are now 190,000 of them -- should mean the resources were in place to quell future insurgencies.

"We have now sufficient assets available between the coalition forces and Iraqi security forces ... to leave behind a robust security presence so the insurgents cannot return."

Lynch warned against seeing any attack on Tal Afar as a re-run of an attack in November on the city of Falluja.

U.S. troops surrounded that Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad and effectively cut it off, but encountered fierce resistance and bloodshed when they entered.

"Every situation is different. Don't try to equate Tal Afar with any previous operation," he said.

See? It's totally different.

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