In Mosul, American COPS keep rough areas in check

[unhappycamper]

An Iraqi Army soldier waits for a Mosul resident to unlock a storage shed Saturday during a search of the 17th Tamooz and Al Kubra neighborhoods. A host of new combat outposts have helped give Iraqi soldiers the freedom and security they need to conduct such searches.


In Mosul, American COPS keep rough areas in check
By James Warden, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, June 3, 2008

MOSUL, Iraq — Sgt. Christopher Sherman has been hit by enough roadside bombs that he’s lost track of the exact total. It’s certainly over a dozen, the tanker said. Possibly 13 or 14.

Sherman, a soldier with Lightning Troop, 3rd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, encountered about half of those on a 1-kilometer stretch of Mosul’s Route Santa Fe. The road twists in such a way that American observers at an Iraqi checkpoint couldn’t watch the middle of this stretch without sending soldiers outside the wire on 24-hour observation missions.

But that was before American soldiers plopped down a combat outpost — or COP — in the middle of the dangerous route. Where insurgents once could secret away bombs in a space invisible to coalition forces, Iraqi and American soldiers can now watch the area continuously from behind the security of their own walls.

Sherman hasn’t encountered a roadside bomb in the area since.

The Santa Fe combat outpost is one of 40 in the Mosul area, compared with 11 before the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment arrived in December.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=55268

[madrchsod]

1. that`s what should have been done on day one....

but that was`t the plan....