Mosul residents stock up ahead of 'decisive battle'

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2008

MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) — Residents of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul are hastily stocking up with supplies ahead of what Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki says will be a "decisive battle" against Al-Qaeda, traders said on Sunday.

Maliki warned on Saturday after an emergency meeting of his war council in Mosul, the last urban stronghold of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, that a major assault on the jihadists in northern Nineveh province was imminent.

Nineveh governor Duraid Kashmoula told reporters in the provincial capital of Mosul on Saturday that the assault would start "in a few days".

The warnings come after blasts and attacks in Mosul which have killed dozens of people, including a police chief, and bombings of Baghdad markets on Friday by two mentally impaired women which...