The Battle for Mosul was a battle fought during the Iraq War in 2004 for the capital of the Ninawa Governorate in northern Iraq that occurred concurrently to fighting in Fallujah. For other uses, see Iraq war (disambiguation). ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Ninawa (in Arabic: نینوا ,in kurdish: Neynewa, in Assyrian: Nineveh) is a governorate (province) in Iraq, and the Arabic name for the biblical city of Nineveh in Assyria. ... This article is about the city of Fallujah in Iraq. ...

Prelude

During the occupation by the U.S. 101st Airborne Division in 2003, a 21,000-strong force under Gen. Petraeus, the U.S. forces made a civil peace with the local Sunni tribes. However, after its pullout, the CIA allied itself almost exclusively with the Kurds, and the U.S. had been seen as essentially another tribal ally of the Kurds, making conflict inevitable. While members of the 25th Infantry Division were heading out of Mosul to Fallujah to help in the attack on the city, insurgents were, ironically, coming in to the city from Fallujah where they were joined by foreign fighters from across the border. Attacks on coalition forces in the city intensified and the insurgents were planning on trying to take the city when the attack on Fallujah began. The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)—nicknamed the “Screaming Eagles”—is an airborne division of the United States Army primarily trained for air assault operations. ... David Howell Petraeus (born November 7, 1952) is a general in the United States Army and commander of Multinational Force Iraq (MNF-I), the four-star post that oversees all U.S. forces in the country. ... Sunni Muslims are the largest denomination of Islam. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... Languages Kurdish Religions Predominantly Sunni Muslim also some Shia, Yazidism, Yarsan, Judaism, Christianity Related ethnic groups other Iranian peoples (Talysh Baluch Gilak Bakhtiari Persians) The Kurds are an ethnic group who consider themselves to be indigenous to a region often referred to as Kurdistan, an area which includes adjacent parts... In American military history, the 25th Infantry Division (nicknamed Tropic Lightening) is a large military unit associated with operations in the Asia-Pacific region. ...

The battle

On November 10, 2004, hundreds of insurgents flooded the streets of the city. They started attacking Iraqi security forces and by the next day had taken the initiative. On the November 11, the insurgents had captured one police station and destroyed a further two. They broke into the stations' armories and distributed the weapons and flak jackets they could find. The Iraqi police force was overrun in a matter of hours, scattering and deserting from the street fighting. Security in the city almost completely broke down. Before the end of the night, insurgent forces had managed to take one of the five bridges over the Tigris river before the Americans took control of the other four. Further insurgent reinforcements arrived at the city on November 12 in technicals and other vehicles. Nine more police stations were attacked – one was destroyed and the others were taken. The headquarters of the Kurdish Union party was also attacked and burned to the ground. The United States Air Force began a bombing campaign on rebel positions in the city which continued into the next day. One of the targets hit was a cemetery. November 10 is the 314th day of the year (315th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 51 days remaining. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... November 11 is the 315th day of the year (316th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 50 days remaining. ... A flak jacket is a form of protective clothing originally developed by the Wilkinson Sword company during World War II to help protect Royal Air Force (RAF) air personnel from the flying debris and shrapnel thrown by German anti-aircraft guns flak (Fliegerabwehrkanone), a type of exploding shell. ... The Tigris (Old Persian: Tigr, Syriac Aramaic: Deqlath, Arabic: دجلة, Dijla, Turkish: Dicle; biblical Hiddekil) is the eastern member of the pair of great rivers that define Mesopotamia, along with the Euphrates, which flows from the mountains of Anatolia through Iraq. ... November 12 is the 316th day of the year (317th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 49 days remaining. ... A technical in Liberia. ...

By November 13, the insurgents had assumed control of two-thirds of the city. They began to hunt down members of the new Iraqi security forces and publicly execute them, usually by beheading. A battalion of the U.S. 25th Infantry Division was diverted from the attack on Fallujah to help in retaking the city. Also, 300 members of the Iraqi National Guard from the Syrian border, an Iraqi special forces battalion from Baghdad and a number of Kurdish peshmerga fighters were called in to assist. The same day, American forces were evacuated from their base at one of Saddam's former palaces in Mosul. Reuters news footage showed looters taking everything they could. Two more police stations were taken by the insurgents on November 14, though their forces withdrew from one. The same day, they burned the governor's house. Two days later, on November 16, U.S. forces managed to break through across the insurgent-controlled bridge, and went on to take back the northern, eastern and southern part of the city. The Americans reported that they met little resistance, though three of the ten police stations were burned down by withdrawing insurgent forces. By late in the evening the city was partly secured by the 25th Infantry.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]} November 13 is the 317th day of the year (318th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 48 days remaining. ... The Iraqi National Guard is a military force in Iraq controlled by the interim government. ... Peshmerga, pesh merga, peshmarga or peshmerge Kurdish: pêşmerge) is the term used by Kurds to refer to armed Kurdish fighters. ... Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: [1]; April 28, 1937[2] – December 30, 2006[3]), was the President of Iraq from July 16, 1979, until April 9, 2003. ... Reuters Group plc (LSE: RTR and NASDAQ: RTRSY); pron. ... November 14 is the 318th day of the year (319th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 47 days remaining. ... November 16 is the 320th day of the year (321st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 45 days remaining. ...

Aftermath

Over the next three weeks, 76 bodies of executed Iraqi soldiers were found throughout the city. 122 people were killed during the street fighting : 4 U.S. soldiers, 31 members of the Iraqi security forces, 9 Kurdish peshmerga fighters, 71 insurgents, five civilians, one British security contractor and one Turkish truck driver. With that the final death toll of the insurgent uprising in Mosul was 198 killed.

The insurgents managed to make a safe haven out of the western part of the city from where they continued to conduct hit and run attacks over the coming months. One of the more notable attacks came just a month after the fighting ceased, when a suicide bomber dressed like an Iraqi soldier managed to get in to the mess tent on an American base and detonated himself – killing 22 people, including 14 American soldiers. The battle resulted in the city complement of security forces deserting leaving the area insecure.[1] Hit and run is the act of hitting an object with a vehicle and leaving the location of the incident. ...

References