Political motives behind mosul violence – officials

NINEWA / IraqiNews.com: Two security officials from Mosul attributed the increase in acts of violence in the city to what they described as political motives, while a third official said it is a natural response from al-Qaeda toward the new security operation recently waged in the city. “ There are attempts to foil all political powers working in Mosul, and there are some political bodies trying to foil the security situation,” a security official from the Ninewa police told IraqiNews.com news agency. Ninewa witnessed on Thursday (March 5) three car bombs explosions as well as a bomb blast, which killed and injured several people. “ These armed attacks aim to foil the new local government and to not allow it to impose its authority in the city,” he added, explaining that al-Qaeda has a clear influence in Mosul and launches attacks that could leave the biggest number of casualties to show its strength and ability. Meanwhile, another police official said that the “political motives stand behind the recent armed escalations in Mosul and I believe that this escalation is aimed to show that the new local government will not be able to maintain security in the city.” For his part, a third security official ruled out any political motives in the Mosul four explosions asserting that these are natural escalations from al-Qaeda towards the new military operations “the new hope” launched in the city last February 20 to track down al-Qaeda gunmen. The spate of bomb attacks in Iraq does not mean al-Qaeda forces have regained strength in the country, an Interior Ministry spokesman had said Friday (March 6). Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf said recent attacks in the country were random events and do not mean al-Qaeda has secured a new position of power. “We can’t consider that al-Qaeda has returned and got its power back because of the past two days explosions,” he said. In one of the most devastating attacks in nearly a month, a car bomb exploded Thursday in a cattle market south of Baghdad, killing at least 10 and wounding 60 others. Other attacks rocked the capital and parts of northern Ninewa province. U.S. and Iraqi officials credit the counterinsurgency strategy dubbed “the surge” with routing al-Qaeda from many of its Iraqi strongholds. The group remains active in the northern city of Mosul, though Iraqi forces Thursday killed a top al-Qaeda commander there as part of Operation New Hope, the latest effort against the terrorist group. Meanwhile, Hassan al-Sanied, a Sunni lawmaker dealing with security issues, discounted the recent uptick in violence as mere “security violations” and not a sign of revived militant strength. Mosul, the capital city of Ninewa, lies 405 km north of Baghdad. The original city of Mosul stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient biblical city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial areas on both banks, with five bridges linking the two sides. Despite having an amount of Kurdish population, it does not form part of the area controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG). There are different communities in Mosul like Christians, Shiites and Kurds along with a Sunni majority. The fabric Muslin, long manufactured here, is named for this city. Another historically important product of the area is Mosul marble. The city is also a historic center for the Nestorian Christianity of the Assyrians, containing the tombs of several Old Testament prophets such as Jonah, Yunus in Arabic, and Nahum. SH (I)/SR 1