Ninawa campaign

The Ninawa campaign was a series of offensives and counter-attacks between insurgent and Coalition forces for control of the Ninawa Governorate in northern Iraq in early-to-mid-2008. Some fighting also occurred in the neighboring Kirkuk Governorate.

Background

The capital of Ninawa province, Mosul, forms the northern tip of the "Sunni Triangle" and lies on a sectarian fault line between Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Before the Iraq War, it was a Ba'ath party stronghold and a major source of officers for the Iraqi Army. The U.S. 4th Infantry Division was originally tasked with entering northern Iraq through Turkey, however the Turkish government blocked the attempt. Instead, 2,000 paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade and 1000 U.S. Special Forces soldiers from the 10th Special Forces group opened a smaller front from Kurdistan, working with the Kurdish Peshmerga to secure Kirkuk and Mosul. As a result, the U.S. forces did not have a large military presence in Ninawa following the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime. In early April 2003, the 173rd Airborne launched Operation Option North to secure Kirkuk and its nearby oilfields. Meanwhile, U.S. Special Forces and Peshmerga turned towards Mosul, securing the city on April 11 after the Iraqi Army V Corps surrendered. Despite efforts by the Special Forces commander, Lt. Col. Waltemeyer to keep Kurdish forces out of the city, Mosul fell into chaos with armed Kurds looting the city and forcing Arabs out of homes. At the same time, former Ba'athists and Iraqi military personnel fled south to Tikrit and began to form the insurgency. By the end of the first week of American occupation of Mosul, 31 Iraqis had been killed and 150 wounded.