Source:
New York Times, Page OneBy MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: December 6, 2007
MOSUL, Iraq, Dec. 5 — Sunni insurgents pushed out of Baghdad and Anbar Provinces have migrated to this northern Iraqi city and have been trying to turn it into a major hub for their operations, according to American commanders. A growing number of insurgents have relocated here and other places in northern Iraq as the additional forces sent by President Bush have mounted operations in the Iraqi capital and American commanders have made common cause with Sunni tribes in the western part of the country.
The insurgents who have ventured north include Abu Ayyub-al Masri, the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a predominantly Iraqi group that American intelligence says has foreign leadership. American officials say the insurgent leader has twice slipped in and out of Mosul in Nineveh Province to try to rally fellow militants and put end to infighting....
The Americans and Iraqis have responded to the influx of militants with operations to cut off the insurgents’ financing and by pursuing insurgent leaders, including Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s emir for the eastern side of the city who was killed in a raid late last month. American and Iraqi units have been able to hold off the insurgents and disrupt their planning. But they have not been able to decrease the rate of attacks in Mosul, which has held stubbornly steady over the past year even as attacks have fallen in Baghdad and Anbar Province, according to an analysis by American officers.
That has prompted American and Iraqi commanders to propose the return of two Iraqi battalions that were sent from western Mosul earlier this year to bolster Iraqi forces in Baghdad. Such a move would increase the Iraqi troop strength here by 1,400 troops or more, according to estimates by American officers, and enable the Iraqis to establish more outposts in some of the more violent areas of the city....
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Unlike Baghdad, Mosul was never scheduled to receive American reinforcements under Mr. Bush’s plan. The mission of the American troops here has been to prevent the city from falling again into the insurgents’ hands and to partner with Iraqi forces, while the main effort was focused on stabilizing Baghdad....
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/world/middleeast/06mosul.html?ref=todayspaper
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