TALL AFAR, Iraq, Sept 9 (AFP) - Twenty-six people were killed and scores wounded in a fresh onslaught overnight by US and Iraqi forces on the town of Tall Afar in northern Iraq, a health official said Thursday.
The bombardments began at 2:00 am (2200 GMT Wednesday) and were still going on 12 hours later, an AFP correspondent said.
Doctor Rabih Yassin, a senior health official in the nearby city of Mosul, said 26 people were killed and 71 wounded in the air strike alone, stressing that more may have been killed in the ensuing clashes.
"US forces and Iraqi national guards are preventing ambulances carrying medical supplies from entering the city," he added.
Fighting also erupted between coalition forces and insurgents in two neighborhoods of the town, located about 450 kilometers (270 miles) north of Baghdad.
On September 4, 13 Iraqis were killed and 53 wounded as US forces backed by a contingent from the Iraqi national guard battled for six hours with insurgents in Tall Afar.
US and Iraqi forces around Tall Afar in recent weeks "were repeatedly attacked by a large terrorist element that has displaced local Iraqi security forces," the US military said Thursday.
"Today, multinational forces and Iraqi security forces initiated operations to eliminate this threat and to restore control of Tall Afar to legitimate Iraqi government officials," it said in a statement.
Last week the US military charged that Tall Afar was a "suspected haven for terrorists crossing into Iraq from Syria."