Word: mosul
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Volesky refused to speculate on whether the Iraqi government would take the U.S. offer. "You know, a prediction's not helpful," Volesky said. "I really want the Iraqis to make that decision and not have a prediction from me." (See pictures of the campaign to control Mosul...
Colonel Gary Volesky's take on whether U.S. forces will continue to operate in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul beyond a June 30 deadline for withdrawal sounded almost as if he were fishing for an invitation. "If the Iraqi government wants us to stay, we will stay," said Volesky, commander of the U.S. combat brigade currently in Mosul. Volesky spoke with reporters via a teleconference from the main U.S. base in Mosul, which remains the last urban stronghold of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. U.S. and Iraqi commanders, Volesky said, are assessing whether U.S. troops should stay in Mosul...
...Iraqi government has not asked for U.S. troops to remain in Mosul past June, despite high levels of violence there over the past year. Insurgents have kept up an aggressive presence in Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, despite repeated campaigns by U.S. and Iraqi security forces to rout them. Iraqi security forces most likely cannot successfully stamp out the insurgent networks in Mosul by themselves. But the Iraqi government may not be so keen to ask U.S. forces to stay. "It depends on the situation at the time," said Tahseen al-Shekhli, a spokesman for the Iraqi government...
...Mosul emerged as the last major redoubt of the insurgency more than a year ago, when violence began dropping significantly in most of the rest of Iraq. The fear then among U.S. and Iraqi officials chiefly revolved around whether the lingering violence in Mosul would spread southward toward Baghdad and erode the security gains made during the U.S. surge. But that has not happened. In the past year, while Mosul has remained the most violent city in Iraq, the rest of the country, with the exception of Diyala province, has indeed seen the lower levels of violence that...
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki initially promised a "decisive battle" in Mosul a year ago, when some wondered whether insurgent attacks there would renew bloodshed in Baghdad and other cities. That battle never came, of course. But al-Maliki has not seemed overly troubled by the fact that Mosul is effectively not under his control. It's been governance as usual for the Prime Minister, whose tangible political power essentially extends across a rump state that includes Baghdad and the oil-rich southern provinces of Iraq. On most days, al-Maliki appears content with that reality, and may remain...