Photo By Staff Sgt. Brian Speach | Police under Colonel Ali of Five West Police Station, Mosul, Iraq.... read more read more
MOSUL, Iraq (June 1, 2006) --Capt. Gordon Campbell, 2nd Battalion, 150th Field Artillery Regiment of the Indiana National Guard and his unit have been assigned to maintain the Iraqi police presence throughout Mosul, Iraq.
His mission is to supply, train and oversee the IP as they continue the fight against the terrorist cells in Mosul, Iraq.
On a regular basis Capt. Campbell and his unit, patrol the streets of Mosul visiting the IP Stations. On this particular day he visited Four West and Five West.
"We need to visit these stations today to let the station commanders know that their recent work has not gone unnoticed and they are doing an outstanding job," he said. "Four West was able to stop a suicide bomber before he was able to detonate his bomb and Five West prevented four vehicles from becoming Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices", and arrested five people in connection with the process."
According to Campbell, Col. Ali was a former member of the Iraqi Republican Guard, and now the Commander of station Five West.
"Colonel Ali has done great things in his sector of Mosul, we could not be happier with his progress," said Campbell. "What we find though is that the general public wants instant results, if they do not see that, they think the mission is not successful, and that could not be further from the truth."
Campbell said the Ali and his men were not only responsible for stopping four cars from becoming VBIED's, they also found a small weapons cache consisting of several 120mm rounds, Rocket Propelled Grenade's and explosives.
The five people he arrested in connection with the VBIEDs were teenage boys looking to make money.
"The problem is that the people of Mosul are very poor and teenage boys a very impressionable, that combination makes it very easy for terrorist cell to recruit these boys," said Ali. "These individuals were given 50,000 Dinear, which is 25 US dollars to make the IEDs for the VBIEDS." We have a good lead on who is responsible for hiring these boys and hopefully another arrest will be coming soon and that will be one more cell out of business in Mosul."
According to Ali he believes the suicide bomber was so high on drugs that he did not know what he was doing.
"That is how the terrorist cells get these men to bomb us," he said. "Fortunately he did not have the motor skills to detonate the device. It could have been very bad. We had luck on our side that day."
The Iraqi Police are very limited in the amount of personnel they have. Ali has adopted a military style leadership role for running his station. His style of leadership has paid great dividends. Ali believes that the Iraqi people do not need to be armed and carry weapons.
"The Iraqi police and army are responsible to maintain law and order in the streets not the citizens of Iraq," he said.
"Four West and Five West have had a great week," said Campbell. "It will not be long before this region will no longer need US or coalition forces."
| Date Taken: | 06.05.2006 |
| Date Posted: | 06.05.2006 09:42 |
| Story ID: | 6657 |
| Location: | MOSUL, IQ |
| Web Views: | 76 |
| Downloads: | 13 |
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