Battle for Mosul hangs in balance

[unhappycamper]

A U.S. soldier with 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment investigates the site of a car bombing in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, on Nov. 1. Five years after the U.S.-led invasion and following a significant drop in violence countrywide over the past year, the battle for Iraq's third largest city still waxes and wanes.


Battle for Mosul hangs in balance
By Denis D. Gray - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Nov 11, 2008 18:18:44 EST

MOSUL, Iraq — It’s not a pretty sight: Sagging skeletons of two- and three-story buildings under a threatening gray sky. Abandoned shops with corrugated iron fronts riddled by bullet holes. And amid the garbage heaps and pools of fetid rainwater, a roadside bomb set to explode.

Five years after the U.S.-led invasion and following a significant drop in violence nationwide over the past year, the battle for Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city, still waxes and wanes.

“This is our hottest area,” said Sgt. 1st Class Ron Corella, a decorated combat veteran in this war-scarred quarter of the ancient city where moments before his troops spotted — and disarmed — that roadside bomb.

“The enemy knows that if we gain a foothold and they can’t push us out, it’s another safe haven they have lost. So they have to fight,” Corella added.

Lt. Col. Robert Molinari, executive officer of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, said Mosul “looks like Baghdad about 18 months ago” at the height of violence in the Iraqi capital.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/11/ap_mosul_111008/%2e

[jimshoes]

1. The thing is Colonel,

they don't mind fighting. It's second nature to them by all accounts, and it's their native land, not ours. You plan on staying there forever?