The US military said yesterday American and Iraqi troops have started operations to secure parts of northern Mosul from insurgents.
US troops and Iraqi security forces began moving in to secure police stations in the western part of the city, closing off the city's five bridges, said Captain Angela Bowman, with Task Force Olympia. Mosul is the third largest city in Iraq.
"We are in the process of securing all of the police stations and returning the police to these stations to implace a strong police presence," she said. "Some of those stations are in neigborhoods on the western side of the city where there has been insurgent activity and presence. We are now moving through the neighborhood."
About 1,200 US soldiers were taking part in the offensive to recapture about a dozen police stations abandoned by Iraqi police forces after an uprising that sprang up following the US-led attack on Fallujah, she confirmed.
Residents reported US warplanes and helicopters hovering over the city, as loud explosions and gunfire were heard near the American base on the northern edge of Mosul.
Eyewitnesses said three police stations already under the control of insurgents were blown up this morning before the militants left.
The Zuhour police station, and a substation in northeastern Mosul were destroyed, along with the Qahira police station in the northern part of the city. No casualties were seen as the stations were controlled by the gunmen.
Also yesterday, insurgents attacked the offices of a key Kurdish party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, in a bloody gunbattle that left three attackers dead and two Kurdish guards and one attacker wounded, said party official Saadi Ahmed.
The attackers' car was carrying weapons and exploded in the confrontation, he added.
In a separate incident, unknown assailants attacked a truck carrying Kurdish peshmerga militia driving in the northern Masarif neighborhood of Mosul, injuring some of them, eyewitnesses said.
The peshmerga were called in last week to protect Kurdish political offices that have come under attack by militants in the past week.
A mass insurgent uprising began in Mosul last week in apparent support of militants in the rebel bastion of Fallujah, just days after the start of the US offensive there.
Masked and armed bands of men stormed more than a half dozen police stations, bridges and political offices in the city, clashing with US troops and Iraqi forces.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
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ON ALERT: Taiwan’s partners would issue warnings if China attempted to use Interpol to target Taiwanese, and the global body has mechanisms to prevent it, an official said China has stationed two to four people specializing in Taiwan affairs at its embassies in several democratic countries to monitor and harass Taiwanese, actions that the host nations would not tolerate, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which asked him and Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to report on potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and military preparedness. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) expressed concern that Beijing has posted personnel from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to its
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