Colonel: US Troops May Stay in Mosul Past June 30

Nineveh Commander Is Latest to Suggest SOFA Deadline Will Be Ignored

by Jason Ditz, April 14, 2009

Less than a week after General Ray Odierno said that US forces might ignore the June 30 deadline set in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and remain in some cities, Nineveh commander Colonel Gary Volesky points to Mosul being one of the cities where troops remain.

Col. Volesky says the assessment is ongoing, but that the troops will remain past June 30 provided that the Iraqi government decides they should stay, which seems almost a certainty at this point given the city’s violent nature.

On Friday, five US soldiers were killed in the worst single attack toll of the year when a truck bomber attacked a Mosul police office. Even as violence across the nation has dropped, Mosul has remained one of the most dangerous major cities in Iraq, with simmering sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shi’ites, as well as ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds, and violence against the city’s Christian minority.

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