With those battles mostly subsided, the razor wire is now being pulled back, inch by inch, leaving most streets now only partially barricaded. But like the razor wire itself, Mosul remains a city that can be pulled in either direction, adding to apprehensions on all sides as U.S. forces prepare to withdraw this month from checkpoints they still man with Iraqi soldiers, including the Kurdish peshmerga.
“You cannot in one or two years clean all of Mosul from the terrorists,” said Maj. Gen. Ahmed Hassan Ali al-Juboori, the commander of the area’s federal police force, who has been shot, kidnapped and had his house blown up in separate incidents since 2004. “It’s day by day, but things are getting better.”
Home to some of Iraq’s most established Sunni, Kurd and Christian communities, Mosul sits on the banks of the Tigris River in Ninawa province amid some of the world’s oldest archeological and religious treasures. But following the collapse of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime, the combustibility of the province underscored the U.S. military’s inability to tame the insurgency and ethnic and religious divisions that nearly broke up the country.
Clashes erupted between armed Kurdish and Sunni militias. Christians, who were largely protected by Hussein, found themselves brutalized at the hands of Muslim extremists. And insurgents and terrorists were so bold that they used to control nearly every police station and held neighborhood parades, Mosul officials said.
Though that violence has greatly diminished, the pending departure of the 15,000 or so U.S. troops still stationed in the region has officials warning that Ninawa province could once again become a flash point as Iraqi government leaders struggle to prove the country can police itself.
As for now, the Iraqi Army’s 2nd Division largely controls the predominately Sunni eastern side of Mosul with a force that includes soldiers on many street corners. Federal and local police protect the ethnically diverse western side of the city. The joint outposts manned by U.S. and Iraqi soldiers are intended to ease Arab-Kurd tension in disputed areas on the outskirts of the city.
‘The status quo is working’
Like Baghdad, another Iraqi city facing an uncertain future, Mosul and surrounding areas will prove a key test for how long Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki can keep military control of an urban area, if local officials can withstand growing unease about a lack of services, and whether the country’s Sunni minority decides to turn to guns or mediation to address concerns of growing isolation.
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