"....insurgents in Mosul have had little luck attacking American troops head on, as their rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and roadside bombs typically do little damage to the 19-ton Stryker light armored vehicles that the Americans have been using..." ...thugs "have learned that if they go head to head with us, they'll lose big time," said Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla, the commander of a battalion that oversees much of western Mosul. "Instead they are going after the Iraqi security forces." " About 400 troops pushed into Old Mosul this week in the first operation of that size there in at least six months. For three hours, as they were soaked by rain under the constant rumble of two Apache attack helicopters circling overhead, they banged on doors, questioned homeowners and shopkeepers, and tried to navigate the labyrinth of streets, which quickly flooded with murky water.
They went in expecting the worst: the mission objective, in military parlance, was "movement to contact," or attacking and capturing insurgents who fired at them as they advanced.
But to everyone's surprise, not a shot was fired, save for a few standard warning shots. Nor were any shots fired during an American raid early Thursday morning, also near Old Mosul, where the military scooped up two men suspected of complicity in attacks on Iraqis who work at a nearby military base.
"I'm kind of disappointed in the enemy," said Capt. Bill Jacobsen, the commander of a 174-man Army company that led the afternoon raid into Old Mosul. "We were there for three hours. Someone all the way to Baghdad could have responded."
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Insurgency: Troops Finding Scores of Bodies of Slain Iraqis
No comments:
Post a Comment