.Stakes are high for U.S., Iraq in Mosul offensive
MOSUL, Iraq | Burned-out cars sit on the street corners.
Mounds of trash and chunks of concrete litter the medians and the gutters. People have flooded here from the countryside, but these days the sidewalks and streets are deserted.
Oil-rich Mosul has become al-Qaida’s latest home base in Iraq. So while the U.S. surge and the deals with tribal leaders elsewhere have improved security conditions, the country’s third-largest city now looks a lot like Baghdad at its worst.
U.S. officials say that al-Qaida in Iraq and other terrorist groups have a significant presence in the city and that Mosul is a gathering point for foreign fighters coming across the border from nearby Syria.
Terrorists are not Mosul’s only problem. The city’s Sunni and Shiite Muslim Arabs detest each other, and the Arabs distrust the city’s Kurdish, Christian and Turkmen minorities. Although 60 percent of Mosul’s population of 1.8 million is Sunni, three-quarters of the provincial government is Kurdish, and the Arabs suspect the Kurds of wanting to take over the city.
“We live in chaos,” said Sheik Fawwaz al-Jarba, a former member of the Shiite alliance in Iraq’s central government. He spoke from Baghdad because Sunni insurgents blew up his house in Mosul.
Islamic extremists have found it easy to blend into this backdrop, said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has vowed a “decisive” battle against al-Qaida in Iraq in Mosul and has sent more troops. How Iraqi and American forces fare in Mosul will test whether the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy and additional American troops can defeat the insurgents or whether they will keep pushing them around Iraq.
The two main U.S. units in Mosul have been on the job only a short time, and the U.S. soldiers are treading warily. The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Hood, Texas, arrived in late November, and the attached 1st Battalion, 8th Regiment, from Fort Carson, Colo., arrived in late December.
U.S. and Iraqi forces are using the formula developed in Baghdad last year — building outposts where there has been no security presence and setting up police stations around the city.
Lt. Col. Michael Simmering, the executive officer for the 3rd Armored Cavalry, predicted a short-term rise in violence as the coalition (about 45,000 strong) pushes into Mosul’s neighborhoods. In the past month, Simmering, of Harker Heights, Texas, can point to a market in the city that has reopened, a road repaved and a few reopened shops.
The rest of the city, however, remains dangerous.
The surge of U.S. and Iraqi forces has caused some al-Qaida members to leave the city, but Jarba, the Shiite sheik, thinks they will return when the soldiers leave.
The sheik also cast doubt on Mosul’s police force, which coalition forces are counting on to help secure the area. Jarba thinks an awakening council, or concerned local citizens group, such as those in Anbar province and Baghdad, where the U.S. coalition pays residents and former insurgents $300 a month to protect their neighbors, should be allowed to take root.
Although Washington officials praise the councils for helping to restore order in Anbar province and in Baghdad, Maj. John Oliver of the 3rd Armored Cavalry said he doubted that they would work in Mosul.
“You don’t have that strong tribal structure here,” he said. “One tribe couldn’t maintain control here.”
Still, the stakes are high.
“Everyone says Mosul is the exception to the rule,” Simmering said. But, “if there were no exceptions to the rule in Iraq … how powerful of a message would it be to send to al-Qaida and the rest of the terrorists in Iraq? I think it would finally address what we’ve been trying to get at for years.”
KansasCity
Mounds of trash and chunks of concrete litter the medians and the gutters. People have flooded here from the countryside, but these days the sidewalks and streets are deserted.
Oil-rich Mosul has become al-Qaida’s latest home base in Iraq. So while the U.S. surge and the deals with tribal leaders elsewhere have improved security conditions, the country’s third-largest city now looks a lot like Baghdad at its worst.
U.S. officials say that al-Qaida in Iraq and other terrorist groups have a significant presence in the city and that Mosul is a gathering point for foreign fighters coming across the border from nearby Syria.
Terrorists are not Mosul’s only problem. The city’s Sunni and Shiite Muslim Arabs detest each other, and the Arabs distrust the city’s Kurdish, Christian and Turkmen minorities. Although 60 percent of Mosul’s population of 1.8 million is Sunni, three-quarters of the provincial government is Kurdish, and the Arabs suspect the Kurds of wanting to take over the city.
“We live in chaos,” said Sheik Fawwaz al-Jarba, a former member of the Shiite alliance in Iraq’s central government. He spoke from Baghdad because Sunni insurgents blew up his house in Mosul.
Islamic extremists have found it easy to blend into this backdrop, said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has vowed a “decisive” battle against al-Qaida in Iraq in Mosul and has sent more troops. How Iraqi and American forces fare in Mosul will test whether the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy and additional American troops can defeat the insurgents or whether they will keep pushing them around Iraq.
The two main U.S. units in Mosul have been on the job only a short time, and the U.S. soldiers are treading warily. The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Hood, Texas, arrived in late November, and the attached 1st Battalion, 8th Regiment, from Fort Carson, Colo., arrived in late December.
U.S. and Iraqi forces are using the formula developed in Baghdad last year — building outposts where there has been no security presence and setting up police stations around the city.
Lt. Col. Michael Simmering, the executive officer for the 3rd Armored Cavalry, predicted a short-term rise in violence as the coalition (about 45,000 strong) pushes into Mosul’s neighborhoods. In the past month, Simmering, of Harker Heights, Texas, can point to a market in the city that has reopened, a road repaved and a few reopened shops.
The rest of the city, however, remains dangerous.
The surge of U.S. and Iraqi forces has caused some al-Qaida members to leave the city, but Jarba, the Shiite sheik, thinks they will return when the soldiers leave.
The sheik also cast doubt on Mosul’s police force, which coalition forces are counting on to help secure the area. Jarba thinks an awakening council, or concerned local citizens group, such as those in Anbar province and Baghdad, where the U.S. coalition pays residents and former insurgents $300 a month to protect their neighbors, should be allowed to take root.
Although Washington officials praise the councils for helping to restore order in Anbar province and in Baghdad, Maj. John Oliver of the 3rd Armored Cavalry said he doubted that they would work in Mosul.
“You don’t have that strong tribal structure here,” he said. “One tribe couldn’t maintain control here.”
Still, the stakes are high.
“Everyone says Mosul is the exception to the rule,” Simmering said. But, “if there were no exceptions to the rule in Iraq … how powerful of a message would it be to send to al-Qaida and the rest of the terrorists in Iraq? I think it would finally address what we’ve been trying to get at for years.”
KansasCity
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