By Xinhua
Mosul, Iraq : Hundreds of officers and soldiers from the former Iraqi army have been joining the new army to take part in the major offensive against al-Qaida in its last haven in the northern Nineveh province, an Iraqi Army source said on Saturday.
“We have more than 100 officers, some are high-ranking ones, and more than 1,000 soldiers and non-commissioned officers from the former army, are all joining the new army,” Brigadier Khalid Abdul-Sattar, spokesman for the Command of Nineveh operation told Xinhua.
“We are still receiving increasing numbers of the former army members in the Kisik military base outside the city of Mosul to join the preparations for the major crackdown against al-Qaida in the province,” Sattar said.
People in the predominantly Sunni province of Nineveh believe that they should take the initiative to provide security for their areas by their own hands rather than relying on troops from outside the province, which are mainly formed from Shiites and Kurds.
Three weeks earlier, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki promised a “decisive battle” in the Nineveh province to uproot the al-Qaida militants from their last stronghold in the province.
In remarks aired on state television, Maliki praised what he called “victory in Baghdad” against the al-Qaida network and thanked the U.S. military for backing the Iraqi troops.
“We have achieved a victory over the Qaida and the outlaws in Baghdad and our forces are chasing them in Nineveh province,” he said referring to the province that the Iraqi officials say al-Qaida in Iraq network has regrouped after being defeated in Baghdad and other provinces.
On Friday, four people were killed and 16 others wounded when two suicide bombers successively targeted a mosque during the Friday prayers in central the town of Tal Afar in Nineveh province, police said.
Security in Iraq dramatically improved over the past several months. The U.S. military said in December that violence had dropped by about 60 percent since June, thanks to a large influx of U.S. troops and the cooperation of Iraq’s Sunnis.
Yet, U.S. military warned that al-Qaida members, who had largely been squeezed out of Baghdad and the former hotbed of Anbar province, were regrouping in northern Iraqi provinces, including Nineveh province, and still capable of launching high-profile attacks.