...Tal Afar is an ancient city of approximately 200,000 peo-ple in northwestern Iraq’s Ninewah Province, near the Syr-ian border. It figured prominently in Abu Musab al-Zar-qawi’s strategy of fomenting sectarian violence toundermine the American effort in Iraq due to its ethnicmakeup of 75 percent Sunni and 25 percent Shiite Turkmen.