Insurgents melted into the countryside around Tal Afar, the militant stronghold near the Syrian border, and guns fell silent Sunday _ the second day of an offensive by 5,000 Iraqi soldiers backed by American forces and armor. In Baghdad, the director of police training at the Interior Ministry was gunned down in front of his home in a western neighborhood as he waited for a ride to work. Maj. Gen. Adnan Abdul Rihman died on the spot, said local police commander Maj. Musa Abdul Karim. The U.S. military said a Task Force Liberty Soldier was killed in a roadside bombing before dawn Sunday while on patrol near Samarra, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad. Two soldiers were wounded. At least 1,897 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. In the southern city of Basra, Iraqi police Capt. Mushtaq Kadim said one British soldier was killed and two were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their convoy. A British military spokesman, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity, said he could only "confirm that an incident took place ... . The area has been secured and an investigation is ongoing." In the Tal Afar assault, Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr reported late Saturday that 141 insurgents had been killed since the operation began. Five government soldiers died and three were wounded, he said. No Americans were killed or injured in the first day of the all-out assault, the biggest military action in months. Col. Billy J. Buckner, a U.S. military spokesman, said Iraqi and U.S. troops had captured 211 terror suspects and confiscated nine weapons caches since Aug. 26 when the joint U.S.-Iraqi force began encircling Tal Afar, 420 kilometers (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad.
