Mosul residents stock up ahead of 'decisive battle'
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 killed almost 100 people.
"It is time to launch a decisive battle against terrorism," Maliki said after Saturday's meeting attended by US commander in Iraq General David Petraeus and Iraq's national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie.
"The battle that our armed forces will launch will destroy terrorism and the criminal gangs and outlaws in Nineveh," he said.
On January 25, Maliki promised a "decisive battle" against Al-Qaeda after dozens of people including a police chief were killed in bomb attacks in Mosul.
Since that warning and the arrival a few days later of military reinforcements in Mosul, residents have made a rush on foodstuffs and fuel, traders said.
"I sold in one week what I usually sell in a month," said grocer Abu Karim, 49. "The rush is continuing."
"Many people have been stocking up on different kinds of foods since the announcement of the operation."
Um Mohammed, 52, a housewife, said she was worried that the whole of Mosul may be brought to a standstill by the assault.
"We need to buy food and vegegatbles because we are afraid the operation will confine us to to our homes and force the shops to close."
Salem Ahmed, a gas salesman in northern Mosul, said prices had doubled because people were stockpiling.
"People are trying to buy as much petrol for their cars and kerosene for heating and cooking as they can," he said.
On January 23, a cache of munitions stored by insurgents blew up in a building in west Mosul's Zanjili suburb, killing up to 60 people according to the Iraqi Red Crescent.
A suicide bomber killed provincial police chief Brigadier General Salah al-Juburi and two other officers the next day when they went to inspect the carnage.
The US military has said Mosul is one of its intended targets in Operation Phantom Phoenix, a major countrywide assault on Al-Qaeda launched on January 8.
"Coalition forces recognise the strategic importance of Mosul to Al-Qaeda in Iraq and our operations will continue in the area," said Commander Scott Rye, a US military spokesman.
"This is not a new plan but part of a larger, comprehensive effort to root out Al-Qaeda and disrupt its networks throughout Iraq... We will continue to coordinate closely with the government of Iraq and Iraqi security forces in our efforts to free all areas of Iraq from Al-Qaeda," Rye told AFP.
