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A 'Model City' Is Caught in Cross Hairs

Mar-18-2004 » Filed Under: Iraq News

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By J. Michael Kennedy, Times Staff Writer

MOSUL, Iraq — The police officers piled out of their van, machine guns at the ready, as they scanned the busy street for any sign of the assassins who had killed three of their own less than an hour before.

As they nervously scrutinized the passing cars being waved through the intersection, the officers had the look of men caught in the cross hairs. Many of them wore kaffiyehs draped to fully cover their faces except for a slit around the eyes. They concealed their identities to avoid being targeted by insurgents who are making killings almost daily occurrences in this northern Iraqi city of 1.7 million people, with police particularly vulnerable.

Mosul was initially considered a model city of the U.S.-led occupation, with a functioning government, police force and economy. Even now, its traffic signals work, in contrast to the chaos that is Baghdad, the capital city.

Over time, the city, a former stronghold of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party regime, became a bloody battleground between Hussein loyalists and the U.S. military. It was here that Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusai, were killed in a July shootout with U.S. troops. And in November, two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters crashed in a residential neighborhood while apparently under insurgent fire, killing 17.

In recent weeks, the violence has expanded, but it has mainly targeted Iraqis.


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