Word: mosul
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...bustling city of Mosul in northern Iraq, there are few hints of the historic election that is about to take place. There are no candidates on the stump making speeches. No supporters handing out leaflets. No rallies, rope lines or debates. Many voters, in fact, don't even know who is on the ballot. Instead, on the streets of the country's third largest city, there is heavy armor--Bradley fighting vehicles, Abrams tanks--and 10,000 weapons-toting U.S. troops, reinforced by almost as many Iraqi government soldiers. They conduct raids on suspected insurgent hideouts, patrol neighborhoods on foot...
Throughout Iraq's restive Sunni heartland, the military is in a race to subdue the insurgents by Jan. 30, when the country is scheduled to hold its first free elections in nearly 50 years. In Mosul commanders say they have curbed the insurgents' movements in the city. But the rebels have responded with ever more sophisticated strikes, disabling U.S. military vehicles with roadside bombs and then opening fire on stopped convoys from several positions. Their attacks have killed nine U.S. soldiers and scores of Iraqi national guardsmen in the past week. "By no means is this a safe city," says...
Throughout Iraq, the hopeful anticipation of the coming exercise in democracy is tempered by an ever present dread. On patrol in Mosul last week, Pangelinan's unit stopped in front of an old man's house. As Americans handed out candy to neighborhood children, Pangelinan asked the Iraqi how he thought the election would go. "Hopefully it will succeed in Mosul," the man said. Pangelinan responded, "I know it will." A few minutes later, after Pangelinan and his men had moved on, a car bomb detonated in the distance, sending a halo of white smoke into the air. --With reporting...
...said last week now comprises some 200,000 men, with its hardened core numbering some 40,000. Besides a daily drumbeat of attacks that have killed hundreds of Iraqi security officials, politicians and civilians, they have also expanded their capability to hurt U.S. forces. The suicide bombing of a Mosul mess tent last month that killed 18 Americans may have seized the headlines, but equally disturbing are three roadside bombings in the past week in which two Bradley armored vehicles and an Abrams tank have been destroyed by improvised explosive devices, killing their occupants. Observers believe the insurgents...
...most dangerous regions, but it's also relatively certain that the raging insurgency - and the political opposition to the poll among some Sunni groups - will keep hundreds of thousands of prospective voters away from the polls throughout the Sunni heartland, as well as in such major cities as Mosul and Baghdad. Still, Prime Minister Allawi believes that to postpone the poll would be to capitulate before the insurgency, and it's far from clear that the situation would be much different six months from...