Home » Archives » "Mosul makes gains against the chaos"

Mosul makes gains against the chaos

Feb- 2-2006 » Filed Under: 172nd SBCT

Link to Full Article
By Nelson Hernandez, The Washington Post

MOSUL, Iraq - A year after its police force melted away and the streets descended into anarchy, Mosul has climbed up from the abyss. But this city of 2 million, a key battleground in the Iraq war, still teeters on the edge of chaos.

Insurgents have tried to assassinate the province's governor three times during his 18 months in office. They have killed his son, five other relatives and 27 bodyguards. The provincial police chief was fired late last year after he was accused of having ties to the insurgency. Unemployment hovers at about 40 percent. The number of reported attacks is down 57 percent since the battle for the city last year, according to Lt. Col. Mitchell Rambih, operations officer for the U.S. Army's 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. But residents say violence remains a serious problem.

"Every day there is shooting," Likaa Talal, a mother of five, told reporters accompanying U.S. and Iraqi troops in Mosul's Jamiilah Circle neighborhood. "There used to be more bombs before, more attacks, but now there is less. I sit at home. I don't know what's going on outside."

Though the political, economic and military situations in Mosul are still tenuous, U.S. officials here say the city's fate will soon be in Iraqi hands. Confident in the skills of the newly trained Iraqi army and political and military leaders who say they are fiercely opposed to terrorism, U.S. commanders have started giving small units responsibility for protecting areas of this ethnically divided city.

So far, two Iraqi battalions, roughly 1,500 men, have been given authority over sectors of the city formerly patrolled by American units. U.S. commanders plan to put a third battalion in charge of another area soon. If all goes as planned, Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province will be in the hands of 24,000 Iraqi troops by November.


Advertisements