Residents fleeing Tal Afar

MOSUL, Iraq (CNN) -- As U.S. soldiers construct a wall around the troubled city of Tal Afar to keep out fighters and weapons, residents are fleeing in fear of an imminent military attack by American and Iraqi forces against insurgents still in the city, according to a senior military commander.
"It's not a mass exodus right now, but people have moved out of the city along kinship lines," Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry, which is responsible for security in Tal Afar, told CNN.
Soldiers have been moving earth to construct a trench and a berm around Tal Afar, forcing traffic to go through rather than around security checkpoints. U.S. Army engineers in Mosul have recently completed a 64-kilometer dirt berm around that city to stem the flow of insurgents and weapons.
McMaster said he believes recent arrests in Tal Afar and at the Syrian border have significantly disrupted the insurgency's ability to operate. But he said insurgents and foreign fighters in parts of the city are continuing to terrorize the population.