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Thursday, January 31, 2008       Free Headline Alerts

U.S. finds Mosul 'worse than imagined'

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military has been struggling in the current mission against Al Qaida in northern Iraq.

At least five soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing during an operation against Al Qaida in Mosul. Al Qaida, which established camps and weapons caches, was said to control numerous areas in and around Mosul, the third largest city in Iraq.

"The situation in Mosul is worse than imagined by far," Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul Qader Jassim Mohammed said during a tour of Mosul. "The security generally in Nineveh province is at a good level but in Mosul, the provincial capital, it is bad."

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Mohammed has ordered at least 3,500 troops and police to Mosul in an effort to destroy the Al Qaida presence, Middle East Newsline reported. The U.S. military has contributed attack helicopters, armored vehicles and special forces to the operation.

But Mohammed said the Iraq Army, which established a command and control center in Mosul, was not prepared for a major assault. The defense minister criticized army deployment and the absence of sustained operations by the 2nd Brigade.

"The forces are scattered," Mohammed said. "We are working to unify the command. The military units are distributed in Mosul in a way that means they haven't studied the area."

Scores of people have been killed over the last week in Al Qaida suicide strikes around Mosul. The bloodiest attack was on Jan. 23 in which at least 60 people were killed when a cache of munitions stored by Al Qaida was detonated. On the following day, a suicide bomber killed Nineveh police chief Brig. Gen. Salah Al Jabouri.

The U.S. military, with 5,000 troops in Nineveh, has targeted the Al Qaida presence in Operation Phantom Phoenix, launched on Jan. 8. But on Jan. 28, a U.S. Army convoy was ambushed in Mosul and five soldiers were killed. So far, at least 36 U.S. soldiers were killed in January in Iraq, a more than 50 percent increase from December 2007.

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