Posted on 01/09/2004 1:52:29 PM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
CAMP PACESETTER, Iraq – With a month of combat operations under its belt, the Stryker brigade is moving onto its next mission: Mosul.
The Fort Lewis-based brigade will relieve the 101st Airborne Division, which has been restoring order and public services in Iraq's third-largest city and the surrounding areas since April.
The 101st has been doing the job with some 25,000 U.S. troops; the Stryker brigade brings just over 5,000.
But it won't be the brigade's mission to do the same work as a force five times its size. Just the opposite: Stryker troops will be trying every day to do a little bit less for the local authorities ahead of June's scheduled handover of sovereignty to a new provisional Iraqi government.
"Our goal is to work ourselves out of a job," said brigade spokesman Lt. Col. Joseph Piek.
The mission will be led by a task force of about 100 soldiers from Fort Lewis as part of a larger multinational division. In its first month in Iraq, the Stryker brigade has been working under the command of the 4th Infantry Division in the Samarra area, about 200 miles southeast of Mosul.The region was relatively calm for several months after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April. There were far fewer attacks on U.S. troops than in Baghdad and in the Sunni Muslim-dominated areas west and north of the capital.
But there have been a number of high-profile attacks the past few months on U.S. troops and the Iraqis working with them in Mosul.
Soldiers have been killed guarding gas stations and traveling in convoys across the city. Late last month soldiers killed three members of the extremist group Ansar al-Islam during a firefight.
Earlier in December a suicide bomber drove a car into the front gate at the U.S. base at Tall Afar, 30 miles west of Mosul, injuring 58 soldiers from the 101st. And on Nov. 15, 17 division soldiers were killed with two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters under fire collided over a residential area in Mosul.
Local judges, newspaper editors and police have also been attacked.
Still, Stryker brigade officials say Mosul and surroundings are more stable and secure than the rest of the country.
News Tribune staff writer Michael Gilbert is embedded with the Stryker brigade in Iraq. Reach him at mjgilbert41@yahoo.com.
* For regular reports on the brigade, sign up for an e-mail newsletter at www.tribnet.com/registration
(Published 12:26PM, January 9th, 2004)
I have seen a date of April for 3/2 to relieve 3rd ACR in Al Anbar province, western Iraq. They didn't stay around Samarra very long. Maybe they won't stay in Mosul more than a couple of months.
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The Fort Lewis-based brigade will relieve the 101st Airborne Division, which has been restoring order and public services in Iraq's third-largest city and the surrounding areas since April.
... Stryker troops will be trying every day to do a little bit less for the local authorities ahead of June's scheduled handover of sovereignty to a new provisional Iraqi government.
"Our goal is to work ourselves out of a job," said brigade spokesman Lt. Col. Joseph Piek.
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Godspeed, Stryker Brigade!
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Mosul has it's own peculiar troubles...anti-Kurd jealousy...and the early success of Mosul attracted bad guys who want us to fail.
The 101st ABN troops and their CO also inspire loyalty in the locals, who provide plenty of tips, and point to plenty of enemy weapons:
8 101ST CAPTURES SIX ANTI-COALITION SUSPECTS ~ CENTCOM | 1/09/04
8 IRAQI CITIZENS TURN IN WEAPONS CACHES ~ CENTCOM | 1/09/04
8 Military begins huge rotation of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan
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I didn't know this. Back to school for me !
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