Two strongholds remain. One Sunni, one Shi'a. One al Qaida, one Iranian. Two "cities": Mosul and Sadr City.
In both cases the final push was more anticlimactic than apocalyptic.
In Sadr City
Iraqi troops pushed deep into Sadr City on Tuesday as the Iraqi government sought to establish control over the district, a densely populated Shiite enclave in the Iraqi capital.
The long-awaited military operation, which took place without the involvement of American ground forces, was the first determined effort by the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to assert control over the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood, which has been a bastion of support for Moktada al-Sadr, the rebel cleric.
The operation comes in the wake of the government’s offensive in Basra, in southern Iraq, which for the time being seems to have pacified that city and restored government control.
The Iraqi forces met no significant resistance. By midday, they had driven to a key thoroughfare that bisects Sadr City and taken up positions near hospitals and police stations, institutions that the Iraqi government is seeking to put under its control.
By early afternoon, Iraqi troops were stationed in large numbers in many parts of the district. Numerous Iraqi tanks and armored personnel carriers were parked on street corners, with relaxed-looking soldiers sleeping in their vehicles or looking out to the street through steel hatches. Other soldiers manned checkpoints, some of them chatting with children.
In Mosul
On any given day just a few months ago, the northern city of Mosul was a noisy place. Sunni insurgents who'd settled in Mosul were keeping up almost daily attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces in the area. Car bombs and mortars shook the air most afternoons. And at night gunfire often crackled as American and Iraqi troops conducted raids on suspected insurgent hideouts in the dark.
But Mosul, the capital of Nineveh Province, has been unusually quiet in recent days as Iraqi security forces undertake fresh sweeps of the city in a new offensive dubbed "Lion's Roar" and commanded personally by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "We have come to Nineveh to restore security," Maliki said to reporters shortly after arriving Wednesday. "Today, law and order is our message. We want to end the suffering in this province."
Perhaps some Iraqi and American commanders hoped for an Alamo scene in Mosul, the guerrilla movement's last urban stronghold in Iraq. But it appears the insurgents have decided to melt away rather than take part in the "decisive battle" Maliki vowed to unleash months ago when Mosul reemerged as an insurgent haven.
Perhaps they planned to melt away but
...U.S-Iraqi forces increased a parallel operation in regions between Mosul and the Syrian border aimed at intercepting fleeing al-Qaida figures, an official in the Iraqi security forces' Ninevah command center said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
Big and small fish alike were taken
Iraqi officials said police on Monday arrested a man suspected of being a top al-Qaida in Iraq figure in the northern city of Mosul, where security forces have been carrying out an intensified crackdown to root out the terror network...
Maj. Gen. Ahmed Taha, of the Iraqi Interior Ministry, identified the detainee as al-Qaida in Iraq's "wali" — or "governor" — in Mosul, which would make him the terror network's top figure in the city and surrounding region.
But a security official involved in the detention said officials were still interrogating the detainee, Abdul-Khaliq al-Sabawi, to confirm whether he is the Mosul wali. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the arrest.
Al-Sabawi was captured in a morning raid in Salahuddin province, which neighbors Mosul's Ninevah province to the south, said Taha, director of the ministry's internal affairs office. He did not elaborate...
So far, more than 1,300 people have been arrested in and around Mosul in the operation, though 240 were cleared of suspicion and released, said Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, the deputy interior minister for intelligence and security affairs.
In the words of Ralph Peters
Want a real "inconvenient truth?" Progress in Iraq is powerful and accelerating.
Who knew?
