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Mosul won’t become next Fallujah, says commander

Nov-17-2004 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT

[Link to Full Article]
MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune

Reports that Mosul, Iraq, was partly under the control of insurgent fighters and in danger of becoming the next Fallujah “is a bunch of baloney,” said Col. Robert Brown, commander of the Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade that arrived there last month.

Brown said U.S. and Iraqi forces were all over the key northern city Tuesday to shore up the embattled police force. They also tried to draw out the fighters who looted and burned several police stations in Thursday’s uprising.

“We went out and occupied every police station in town, and patrolled all over the place,” Brown told The News Tribune in a telephone interview Tuesday. “We were saying, ‘Come on!’ They avoided us all day long.”

He echoed his boss, Task Force Olympia commander Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, who on Monday assessed the situation in Mosul as “tense but not desperate.”

But Brown also acknowledged the challenges of his mission, including contrary information being put out by Iraqi government leaders and threats from ruthless insurgents that make it difficult for a strong local leadership to take root.

“I have great hope, but it’s not a fast process,” Brown said. “There’s a lot of hard work ahead.”

Three servicemen from Brown’s 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division have been killed in Mosul in the last week.

News services reported that a U.S. soldier was wounded Tuesday when a car bomb blew up near his convoy. Brown said the injury was minor and the soldier returned to duty.

News services also reported that mortars hit the area near the provincial government headquarters in downtown Mosul on Tuesday, killing three Iraqis and wounding 25 others. Another car bomb exploded outside a police station.

The Nineveh governor imposed a 4 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew and closed all five bridges across the Tigris River, which divides the city into east and west halves.

Iraqi Interior Minister Falah al-Nakib in Baghdad told reporters insurgents controlled three or four police stations, but Brown said that wasn’t true.

“It’s tense because people here just want to get on with their lives, they want to be free, and these terrorists just won’t let them,” Brown said. “They want chaos.”

Read the rest. Gilbert also mentions that a variety of news organizations are sending correspondents to Mosul, so expect the extensive coverage to continue.


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