Feeling of siege in Mosul

Families peered through the half-open gates of crumbling old homes as mammoth US armoured vehicles dotted a rain-drenched sloping backstreet in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Wednesday.

US infantry soldiers armed to the hilt were here along with units from the Iraqi national guard to secure a police station abandoned after insurgents attacked at least 10 such stations one week ago, killing seven policemen and torching buildings and vehicles.

US and Iraqi forces launched an operation Tuesday to retake police stations and government buildings in this city of two million, with razor wire blocking some alleyways in this poor working class neighbourhood known as New Mosul.

The station, nestled behind concrete barricades, had been found largely intact.

Residents say insurgents were never in the area.

"The Americans should not just barge into our midsts like this," said Mazen Salem, 24, crouching down with a friend of his on one side of the street littered with uncollected garbage.

"When they get attacked by insurgents and they fire back, they are going to put everybody's life in danger."

He said he has sent his wife and children to stay with relatives on the eastern side of Mosul until the situation calms down.

People gathered on a street corner nearby to talk about worsening living conditions since the outbreak of violence and the extension of a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

"We have not been able to get heating gas and winter is here," says Abed Ali Mohammed, 68, wearing a white keffiyeh (male headscarf).

He explains that a vendor of propane gas has not showed up in the neigbourhood in weeks.

Others complain of a lack of electricity and the fact that most food shops are closed.

A few cars swished through big puddles of water on the mostly deserted streets of the city after a night of heavy rain and cold winds.

Others waited desperately in long queues to try to cross over to the east side over the city's main Al-Hurriya (freedom) bridge.

Passage over all of the city's five bridges across the Tigris has been barred with concrete blocks and barbed wire since Tuesday, with US troops also deployed on all crossings.

US military commanders say such measures and their strong presence on the streets are temporary until a revamped Iraqi police force is able to stand on its feet again.

"It's like teaching your child to sleep in a room by himself," said Lieutenant Colonel Michael Kurilla.

"If they call and say there's a monster in their room, you come back and say it's fine."

And on Sheikh Fatehi street on the northwestern side of the city, there were plenty of reminders of the death and destruction insurgents were capable of unleashing.

The main police station, a symbol of Iraq's budding, US-groomed sovereignty, is a shambles behind a bullet-riddled cement barrier painted with the black-white-and-red colours of the country's flag

The wreckage of a dozen police vehicles lay out front. Inside, walls were ravaged by soot and furnishings were reduced to heaps of ashes.

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