Word: mosul
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Pope Benedict passionately condemned last week's death of Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, Paulos Faraj Rahho, who was kidnapped on Feb. 29 in the northern Iraqi city. As many as 350,000 of the 800,000 Christians in Iraq before the war have since fled the country, while smaller but similar exoduses have occurred in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and other parts of the Arab world...
...years afterward, violence in Mosul fluctuated as insurgents kept up a presence in the city. But the situation there seemed much more stable than many parts of Iraq such as Baghdad and Ramadi. Then in 2007, as surge forces began reducing violence across Iraq, the picture in Mosul worsened, leaving it the only place in the country where violence was rising as the year closed. Iraqi and American officials agree that Mosul is now probably the last urban stronghold of the insurgency. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki dispatched additional Iraqi army troopers to the area, promising a "decisive battle...
...military strategy in Mosul for both U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces is much the same approach used elsewhere in Iraq over the years, with mixed results. Absent, however, is one key aspect that shaped progress in other places over the past year: local volunteer security forces who, in many cases, were nationalist insurgents who broke with al-Qaeda in Iraq. U.S. officials say that strategy won't work in Mosul, because standing up bands of irregulars could inflame existing ethnic and sectarian divisions in the city. So many U.S. military officials see provincial elections...
...opportunity for reconciliable Sunnis to turn from the insurgency to participation in the government does not appear to be near. Last week, Iraq's presidential council blocked a proposal for new provincial elections, sending the measure back to the parliament for reconsideration. So U.S. and Iraqi forces in Mosul are left to slog on against the insurgency rooted there without the prospect of a change in the political dynamic that might alter the situation in the way the tribal revolt in Anbar Province against al Qaeda in Iraq did last year...
Daily missions by U.S. and Iraqi troops continue in Mosul, a pivotal hub for insurgents operating throughout Iraq. Petraeus says U.S. and Iraqi forces are eliminating one insurgent roadside bomb team a night and taking out key insurgent leaders. "You've got to chip away at the enemy," he says. "Al-Qaeda knows they can't win without Baghdad, but they can't survive without Mosul...