TAL AFAR, Iraq (AP) – Iraq’s prime minister toured the ancient northern city of Tal Afar on Monday – ignoring an alleged al-Qaida threat to strike with chemical weapons – to congratulate Iraqi forces for rousting militants from their stronghold near Syria, Iraqi television reported.

Al-Iraqiya television, which showed no pictures, said Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari was in the region despite an insurgent threat to unleash chemical and biological weapons against the force of 5,000 Iraqi soldiers and commandos, backed by 3,500 troops from the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry regiment, who stormed into the city Saturday.

The offensive “was a great shock to al-Qaida. They were thrown off balance and issued this threat. We will be on the lookout,” Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said at a news conference.

Militant positions were found mainly deserted Sunday, and the invading force discovered a network of tunnels below the city through which the insurgents were believed to have fled to the surrounding countryside.

Brig. Gen. Abdul Aziz Mohammed-Jassim, spokesman for the Iraqi army in Tal Afar, said the final insurgent death toll was 157, with 291 suspected militants captured. He said one Iraqi soldier was killed Monday, bringing the army death toll to at least six for the entire operation. Six civilians died, he said.

The U.S. military reported a similar number of insurgent deaths, 141, a day earlier. No U.S. soldiers were killed, it said.

Al-Iraqiya reported that al-Jaafari was in Tal Afar in defiance of “a terrorist threat to attack the city with chemical and biological weapons.”

There was no known public threat from the insurgents to use unconventional weapons in the area, but they have issued two Web postings since Friday, vowing to use chemical weapons against U.S. and Iraqi government interests in Baghdad.

Also, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, posted audio Sunday on the Internet accusing U.S. and Iraqi forces of using poison gas in the Tal Afar offensive. The authenticity of the tape could not be independently verified.

, but the voice was similar to other postings attributed to the Jordanian-born militant.

“The Crusaders mobilized their big armies and used the most destructive and lethal weapons and the most deadly and hurtful poison gas together with their stooges,” he said. “But God made them drink at the hands of the mujahedeen the different kinds of death and made them face horrible things that they will never forget.”

U.S. officials consistently have denied using poison gas in warfare.

In a new Web posting Monday, an insurgent group offered a bounty of nearly $200,000 for the deaths of al-Jaafari, Jabr and Defense Minister Sadoun al-Dulaimi in retaliation for the Tal Afar offensive.

The Islamic Army in Iraq, which previously claimed responsibility for kidnappings and killings of foreigners, called on its “holy fighters to strike the infidels with an iron fist.” It offered $100,000 for killing al-Jaafari, $50,000 for Jabr and $30,000 for al-Dulaimi.

“What the American forces and Iraq’s traitors, the tails of the infidels, did in Tal Afar is a genocide to the Sunni people in this great city,” the statement said.

In the days leading up the Tal Afar offensive, U.S. forces carried out airstrikes and joined the Iraqi army in encircling the city about 60 miles from Syria.

The insurgent fighters, thus, had plenty of warning the city would be attacked and fled the onslaught in a classic guerrilla retreat. Tal Afar has now been swept clear of extremists for the second time in a year.

“The terrorists had seen it coming (and prepared) tunnel complexes to be used as escape routes,” said Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, deputy chief of staff for coalition forces.

Signaling their frustration in having to repeat the assault on the city, Iraqi and U.S. military leaders vowed to redouble efforts to crush insurgents operating along the Syrian frontier and in the Euphrates River valley.

As Baghdad kept a border crossing into Syria, al-Dulaimi issued a warning: “The Syrians have to stop sending destruction to Iraq. We know the terrorists have no other gateway into Iraq but Syria.”

A Syrian Foreign Ministry official reacted angrily Monday, rejecting the Iraqi claim as “absolutely untrue.” The official SANA news agency in Damascus did not name the official it quoted as saying, “Iraqi officials are fully aware that Syria is exerting all-out efforts to control the borders.”

The United States and Iraq routinely charge that Syria’s government does little to stop the flow of Arab fighters across the border.

Al-Dulaimi said the offensive in Tal Afar would be a model as his forces soon thrust farther west toward the Syrian border and south into the Euphrates valley.

“We are warning those who have given shelter to terrorists that they must stop, kick them out or else we will cut off their hands, heads and tongues as we did in Tal Afar,” al-Dulaimi added, apparently using figurative language.

Most of Tal Afar’s residents – 90 percent of them Turkmen – fled before the fighting, and tens of thousands are living in tent cities to the north and east. Food, water and medical supplies are scarce.

“This camp is suffering from the lack of medicine. I need an ambulance to evacuate the critical cases,” said Dr. Abdullah Jassem, the only physician at a camp near the village of al-Alouliyah. The Iraqi and Turkish Red Crescent societies have rushed aid to the refugees.

In other developments Monday:

– Police in eastern Baghdad reported finding the bodies of 10 unidentified men, their hands tied, who were shot to death.

– Gunmen killed a bodyguard of the mayor of Mahmoudiya, a town about 20 miles south of Baghdad. The mayor was unhurt, police said.

– Two Kurdish security guards died and three were wounded when gunmen fired on their vehicle in the northern town of Mosul. On the city’s outskirts, police said they found two badly burned bodies.

– In Baghdad’s southern neighborhood of Dora, two men were killed in separate drive-by shootings, police said.

– In Kirkuk, unidentified gunmen fired on a police car, killing the two policemen inside. The city, 180 miles north of Baghdad, has seen numerous such attacks.

AP-ES-09-12-05 1115EDT

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