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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Mosul may be next

Newhouse News Service

With war already raging in Fallujah in central Iraq, officials worry that the relatively peaceful north is on the brink of explosion, with fighting already flaring in the city of Mosul.

“The Mosul governor has invoked immediate curfew and all bridges are closed,” U.S. Army Lt Col. Paul Hastings said. “The current situation is developing.”

Security and intelligence officials of the pro-U.S. Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq say they have concluded that Mosul, an ethnically diverse city of 2.5 million near the Syrian and Turkish borders, may be the next battlefield in the war between insurgents fighting the U.S.-led occupation force and Iraqi interim government.

“We are very worried about Mosul,” said Kosrat Rasool Ali, a ranking leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which controls the eastern half of the autonomous Kurdish region. “The same terrorists who are in Fallujah are coming to Mosul. They are reorganizing themselves, they are coordinating with the other groups.”

U.S. military officials have suggested that the lighter-than-expected military resistance against their Fallujah assault may mean that many of the insurgents had filtered out of the city to other population centers.

Iraqi Kurds worry fighting in Mosul could spill over into other parts of northern Iraq, possibly destabilizing the three-province Kurdish enclave.

“Mosul is a big threat,” said a high-level Kurdish security official in Irbil, about 50 miles west of Mosul, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It is going to be the second Fallujah, but even worse.”