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| Iraq |
| Mosul to fall next? |
| 2003-04-10 |
| Late Thursday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Kurdish troops and U.S. forces from the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade had entered Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and were "being welcomed by the people." The commander of the Iraqi army's 5th Corps and the governor-general are expected to surrender to U.S. special operations troops in the Mosul area, U.S. military sources told CNN on Thursday. Details were being worked out between the Iraqis and U.S. forces, officers at U.S. Central Command told CNN. Mosul was one of the coalition's prime targets for the bombing campaign. In the past 24-hours, the coalition flew 1,750 sorties, 550 of them strike sorties, Pentagon officials said. Coalition aircraft launched what officials called their heaviest wave of bombing along the burgeoning northern front early Thursday. The 5th Corps' combat strength was estimated at 30,000 troops when the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began March 20, but it is unknown what toll heavy airstrikes and desertions have taken on its three infantry divisions and one mechanized infantry division, U.S. military sources told CNN. Still, the corps' surrender would remove a significant obstacle to coalition control of the city. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |