NEW WAVE OF IRAQI REFUGEES EXPECTED IF U.S. ATTACKS MOSUL

The United States military and the Iraqi Army, such as it is, are making plans to attack Mosul, a city of 3.8 million people.

Red Crescent, the humanitarian organization in Iraq, says if the U.S. and Iraqi troops go ahead with an attack on Mosul there will be an unprecedented number of Iraqi civilians displaced during the attack.

The reason given by the U.S. military for an attack on Mosul is because it is expected many insurgents and terrorists live inside the city.

There are already about three million Iraqi refugees in neighboring states and more than two million others are displaced as a result of ongoing U.S. military operations and sectarian strife.

Red Crescent warns of a new wave of Iraqi refugees

By Salem Areef

Azzaman, March 15, 2008

http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C2008-03-15%5Ckurd.htm

The Iraqi Red Crescent Society is warning of a massive exodus if U.S. and Iraqi troops go ahead with plans to attack Mosul, the country’s second largest city with nearly 3.8 million people.

The northern city which is the capital of the Province of Nineveh has turned into a major stronghold for forces resisting U.S. occupation and elements of the al-Qadeda organization.

Tensions are high and violence has gripped the city in the past few months with at least one hundred houses destroyed and hundreds of people killed or injured.

Certain quarters are so violent that neither U.S. troops nor Iraqi forces are capable of entering.

But the society said it feared a joint attack in which units of Kurdish militias are to take part will lead to one of the largest waves of internally displace people the country has seen since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Hard pressed ethnic and religious minorities in the city have been leaving either to the Kurdish north or neighboring Syria.

Mosul is a predominantly Sunni Arab city and residents are apparently unhappy with the role U.S. occupation troops have given to Kurdish militia fighters.

The Arabs see Kurdish involvement in areas which have traditionally not been part of Iraqi Kurdistan with suspicious eyes.

Kurdish militias are now present in most villages and towns which are administratively part of Mosul as the center of Nineveh Province.

Some of these areas hold huge oil reserves like Ain Zala.