TALL AFAR, Iraq Sept 14 (AFP) - The US Army lifted its siege Tuesday on the northern city of Tall Afar, which has been severely damaged by intense fighting, but few residents returned, an AFP correspondent witnessed.
Tall Afar, where more than 50 people were killed last week in pitched urban conflict between insurgents and US troops, was a ghost town Tuesday.
Locals ventured inside the town only to retrieve their belongings and expressed fears about a fresh outbreak of unrest.
US troops were posted only on the outskirts of the city in armoured vehicles. Only policemen were seen inside Tall Afar.
At the entrance to the city, farmer Qaiss Hatem Abdullah, 56, said "my family and I want to go back to Tall Afar, but we are afraid military operations will break out again like in Najaf and Fallujah."
Another man, Mohammed Abdul Amir Haidar, staying with his family in a refugee camp, said: "I prefer to stay in the camp ... because the situation in Tall Afar is so unpredictable."
Inside the city, houses were scarred by bullet holes, electricity and water were cut, four schools damaged, cars burnt, dozens of shops shuttered and the smell of rotton corpses wafted through the street.
The Al-Mehdi mosque in western Tall Afar was riddled with bullet holes.
Fighting erupted last Thursday in the city of 150,000 people, which is populated mainly by Shiite Turkmen.
US forces sealed off the community and hundreds of families camped out in a makeshift refugee camp on the outskirt of the city as US troops and rebels battled inside.
US troops claimed the city was a gathering point for foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria, which is only 75 kilometres (47 miles) away.
The bloodshed in the Turkmen area has drawn the anger of neighboring Turkey, which deplored the US offensive.
Before the latest operation, US forces invaded Tall Afar the first week of September, declaring its intention to root out foreign fighters in the community.