Rebels threaten Mosul takeover

By Seattle Times news services

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MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi authorities and U.S. forces were struggling to maintain control of Iraq's third largest city yesterday as insurgents moved at will through large sections of the city, residents said. The military said 10 Iraqi National Guardsmen and one American soldier were killed in Mosul on Thursday.

The provincial governor called for massive reinforcement of Iraqi security forces to supplement the Mosul police force, which splintered under a wave of insurgent attacks on at least five police stations Thursday.

Iraqi National Guard units were being rushed to the city from three directions, as were Kurdish forces from Irbil to the south.

"We asked the central government in Baghdad, and God willing they should arrive today," said the provincial governor, Duraid Kashmoula.

He said insurgents had penetrated the local security forces, hastening their partial collapse. Iraq's Interior Ministry fired the city's police chief, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Kheiri Barhawi.

"It's fair to say that there are some ties to the insurgents," said Army Gen. Carter Ham, commander of U.S. forces in the area, talking about the police. "We'd be kidding ourselves if we thought that was not the case."

The ethnic Kurds fought alongside U.S. forces during the 2003 invasion — a move that could inflame ethnic rivalries with Mosul's Sunni Arab population. Nevertheless, it appeared Iraqi authorities had no choice given the apparent failure of the city's police force to maintain order.

Ham said combat was "sporadic" yesterday and less intense than the day before. Still, the situation was deemed sufficiently difficult that an Army light-armored unit was peeled away from Fallujah to reinforce the U.S. force in Mosul.

However, insurgents yesterday attacked the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistsan, one of two Kurdish parties, setting off a vicious, hourlong firefight. At day's end the headquarters was still under Kurdish control.

Residents reported that police largely had disappeared from the streets and gangs of armed men brandishing automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers roamed the city, 225 miles north of Baghdad.
 
Militants also killed the head of the city's anti-crime task force, Brig. Gen. Mowaffaq Mohammed Dahham, and set fire to his home.

"With the start of operations in Fallujah a few days ago, we expected that there would be some reaction here in Mosul," Ham said.

Ham said he doubted the Mosul attackers were insurgents who fled Fallujah and said most "were from the northern part of Iraq, in and around Mosul and the Tigris River valley that's south of the city."

Compiled from The Washington Post, Chicago Post and The Associated Press.