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Strykers patrol Mosul streets

Jan-19-2005 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT

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By Steve Walsh, Post-Tribune staff writer

MOSUL, Iraq — The area around Mosul remains dangerous in the weeks leading up to the election.

Overnight, another beheaded body was found near one of the traffic circles.

Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa, an Iraqi and a leader of the Syrian Catholic Church, a branch of the Roman Catholic Church, was released Tuesday.

He had been abducted outside his home Monday, not too far from where the Strykers with the 73rd Engineering Battalion patrolled, just before dawn Tuesday.

The Strykers, from Fort Lewis Wash., are one of the units supporting the Indiana National Guard 113th Engineering Battalion. In the morning they patrolled through Mosul, crossing the Tigris. The city is under a curfew that lifts at 6 each morning.

By that time, the Strykers pass a not-yet-open gas station where a long line of cars has formed, wrapped around the block, two rows deep.

As the unit crosses the river, Sgt. Devardy Arnold points to the stadium for the Iraqi Olympic soccer team.

There are still some faded signs and pictures of players and children on the walls in the adjoining neighborhood.

It is a vestige that shows Mosul was a relatively tranquil place, after the initial fighting ended.

“It’s hard to fix a country when people take the wiring out of the lamp posts to use in their homes. It’s hard for me to understand that. It hurts their own people,” said Arnold as the crew moves through the city.


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