Maliki promises decisive battle at Mosul against Al-Qaeda in Iraq

Source: AFP, 25-1-2008
KERBALA, Iraq: Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declared a major offensive against Al-Qaeda in Iraq Friday, promising a "decisive battle" after dozens of people including a police chief were killed in bomb attacks in Mosul.
Iraqi forces were moving toward Mosul, 370 kilometers north of Baghdad, for a major assault that would become a "decisive battle," Maliki told an economic conference in the central shrine city of Kerbala.
At least 35 people were killed and 217 wounded in a massive bomb attack on Wednesday that obliterated a building and destroyed houses in Mosul, Iraq's third main city and the capital of Nineveh Province.
A suicide bomber killed provincial police chief Brigadier General Salah al-Jubouri and two other officers on Thursday when they went to inspect the previous day's carnage.
"We have formed an operations center in Nineveh for a final war against Al-Qaeda and the remnants of the former [Saddam Hussein] regime," Maliki said.
"Today our forces are moving toward Mosul. What we have planned in Nineveh will be final. It will be a decisive battle," he said. "The crime committed by Al-Qaeda Wednesday in Nineveh is the last of their resources. We have defeated Al-Qaeda in Iraq and only Nineveh remains."
He warned that the Iraqi Army was now a powerful force.
"We have a real Iraqi Army," Maliki said. "I want to say that to all those people who think they can do things in front of the Iraqi security forces that those days have gone."
US intelligence experts warn that Mosul remains a dangerous "strategic center of gravity" for Al-Qaeda in Iraq due to its road links to the Syrian border, which Washington says most foreign fighters coming into Iraq use as their springboard.
Three weeks ago, US and Iraqi forces launched a fresh assault against Al-Qaeda in Iraq operatives, blamed for much of the violence in Iraq.
On Thursday, Maliki issued an angry statement saying that those behind the Mosul attacks would be hunted down and brought to justice. "This crime exposes the moral bankruptcy of the terrorists after a string of defeats at the hands of our armed forces," Maliki said.
Kerbala, 70 kilometers south of Baghdad where Maliki was speaking Friday, has also been the scene of violence, with insurgents late Thursday attempting to kill a leading Shiite cleric.
Sheikh Abdel-Mehdi al-Kerbalai survived the bomb attack on his convoy but two of his bodyguards were killed, officials said. Another four guards were wounded.
Kerbalai is the Kerbala representative of Iraq's Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and often leads Friday prayers in the Imam Hussein Mosque, one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines. Speaking of the attack, Maliki said it was the work of "foreign intelligence services, ignorant people and remaining loyalists of the former regime." Later on Friday he went to visit the cleric, who appeared relaxed and calm.
In other violence Friday, police said a man was killed and another wounded when their car was struck by a roadside bomb at Abu Saida near the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba.
Diyala and Nineveh are among four north-central provinces identified by the US military as the principal remaining centers of operations for Al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters after they were pushed out of the Baghdad area. The other two are Tamim and Salaheddin.