Mosul, where Iraq's insurgency still rages

...Unlike other Sunni-dominated provinces which are largely
homogeneous, Nineveh, with a population of 2.8 million people -- of
whom 1.8 million live in Mosul -- comprises 60 percent Sunnis, 30
percent Kurdish, five percent Shiites and five percent other
communities, including Christians.

Here the Sahwas, recruited
initially by the US military but now on the payroll of Baghdad, are not
welcome -- especially by Kurdish parties and their powerful militia,
the peshmergas.

"With seven ethno-sectarian divisions, the moment you start arming a tribe, every tribe will want to be armed," said Boyd.

In
this cosmopolitan city, a trading crossroads since antiquity, it is
easy for a militant cell to operate. The result -- on average no less
than 10 to 12 car bomb blast every day.

On Sunday, the convoy of
Iraqi Colonel Mohammed, who uses only one name, was hit by a bomb
hidden in a truck on a main thoroughfare. His armoured vehicle was
struck by shrapnel which punctured three tyres but there were no
casualties.

In mid-October the Iraqi government ordered a massive
deployment of forces to Mosul, swelling the numbers of police and
troops in the city to around 36,000.

Among them is police Captain
Hassan Ali. Perched at his hilltop headquarters, he explained,
"Elsewhere, the people have understood. They said 'chase these
terrorists'. But here, that has not yet started.

"The communities
live very separately: the Kurds only listen to the Kurdish parties, the
tribes think only of their own interests," said Ali.

"The level
of corruption and intimidation is very high. It is usual that a guy we
hold for terrorism is very quickly released. People don't want to speak
because they fear revenge. This is the reason the terrorists are still
powerful in Mosul."

In Baghdad, national security adviser Muwafaq
al-Rubaie said Mosul was also the last stronghold of members of the
Baath party of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

"Mosul has
thousands of former regime elements and former high ranking Baathists.
This is the last bastion of the Baath party," Rubaie told AFP.

"It's
political, it's religious and it's also ethnic tensions between Arabs
and Kurds and you have the Turkomen also, so it is very complicated. It
will take some time to solve that."

With an unemployment rate
exceeding 50 percent, Nineveh with its thousands of idle youths is an
ideal recruiting pond for around 15 active insurgent groups in the
area, says American Major Scott O'Neal, chief of operations of the 3rd
Cavalry.

"Elsewhere, the Sahwa has taken away one of the prime
elements of the insurgency in these areas, which is the lack of
employment," said O'Neal.

"A lot of these guys were working with the insurgency only to put food on the table. Here, this doesn't exist yet."

[bth: 10 to 12 car bomb attacks daily is just extraordinary.]