MOSUL • Iraq's security forces yesterday imposed a curfew in two districts of the northern city of Mosul, where Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki has vowed a "decisive battle" against Al Qaeda, an official said.
"The curfew applies in the Palestine and Sumer districts (of southwest Mosul) and will last three days. The areas have been sealed off so they can be searched," said Brigadier General Khalid Abdul Sattar of the Nineveh province operations command.
"These measures have nothing to do with the military operation," Sattar insisted.
A senior official, meanwhile, said 3,000 extra policemen have arrived in Mosul, boosting total numbers to 22,000 ahead of the expected assault in Mosul, capital of Nineveh and last urban bastion of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
"Three thousand police reinforcements have arrived," said Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf, director of the national command of the interior ministry under which the police operates. "We now have 22,000 policemen in Mosul," Khalaf said.
The latest developments came after Maliki held another meeting of his war council on Thursday to discuss plans for the military drive against Al Qaeda.
On January 25, the prime minister promised a "decisive battle" against the jihadists after dozens of people including a police chief were killed in Mosul bombings.
Residents of the city, 370km north of Baghdad, have been stocking up with supplies in anticipation of the battle, traders say.
The ethnically diverse city has been rocked by violence in recent weeks, including a powerful blast that killed up to 60 people when a cache of munitions stored by insurgents blew up in a building in the Zanjili suburb.
A suicide bomber killed provincial police chief Brigadier General Salah al-Juburi and two other officers the next day when they went to inspect the carnage.
As the battle looms Iraqi and American commanders are missing an essential tool used to uproot insurgents elsewhere: groups of local Sunni fighters.
The so-called Awakening Councils remain conspicuously absent in Mosul and efforts to stir a similar movement appear unlikely amid the region’s pecking order of groups. Some military leaders even worry that seeking to enlist local allies could boomerang and bring more unrest.
It could create “the perception that you’re arming one side, which automatically creates tension among the groups and has the potential to escalate violence,” said Lieutenant Colonel Michael Simmering, of the 3rd Armored Cavalry at Forward Operating Base Marez near Mosul.
This could change the complexion and strategy of the anticipated offensive in the Mosul area, which is believed to be Al Qaeda’s last major urban stronghold.
In other key showdowns over the past year — including the western Anbar province and Sunni corridors around Baghdad — US-led forces have counted on important help from the Awakening Councils, which provide extra firepower and critical local knowledge.
