Iraqi forces lift curfew in Mosul after rounding up 62 suspects, as 9 more are killed

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
BAGHDAD, Iraq_Iraqi authorities Sunday lifted a partial curfew in the
country's third largest city, rounding up 62 suspects after repulsing a
series of attacks that killed a police colonel and raised concern that
insurgents were regrouping there.

A Defense Ministry statement said the 62 arrests were made in northern Iraq
since Saturday, a day after heavy fighting erupted in Mosul between security
forces and insurgents. Another 10 suspected insurgents were arrested in
other parts of the country, the statement said.

Nine other people were arrested elsewhere in the country in the ongoing
sectarian and political violence, police said.

The curfew had been imposed in the eastern part of Mosul, where much of
Friday's fighting took place, but was listed Sunday after order was
restored, police chief Maj. Gen. Wathiq al-Hamdani said.

Police estimated that 20 militants were killed in the Friday fighting but
only four bodies have been found. The fighting began after a car bomb killed
a police colonel and three other policemen.

Elsewhere Sunday, gunmen in Samarra ambushed a convoy of Iraqi trucks
carrying food, killing two drivers and setting their trucks on fire, said
police Capt. Laith Mohammed said. A sniper shot dead a government security
guard in southern Baghdad.

Police found the bodies of five men in Baghdad and one in the southeastern
city of Amarah. All had been shot, police said.

Mosul, a predominantly Sunni city 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of
Baghdad, was virtually overrun by insurgents in a November 2004 onslaught
during which the city's entire 5,500-member police force fled their posts.

This time, however, the police stood their ground, boosting confidence that
Iraqi forces can contain any rise in violence.

Friday's attack, which indicated a rearming of the militants, occurred as
the U.S. Army's 172nd Brigade of 3,700 troops was moving out of Nineveh
province, of which Mosul is the capital, to reinforce U.S. and Iraqi forces
in Baghdad.

A new Stryker force from the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division has replaced to
force sent to Baghdad.
 
Back
Top