IRAQ:Iraqi security forces have begun a "decisive" final offensive against al-Qaeda in Iraq to push the Sunni Islamist militants out of their last major stronghold in the north, prime minister Nuri al-Maliki said yesterday.
He said Iraqi soldiers and police were being sent to Mosul, where a massive blast blamed on al-Qaeda killed 40 people and wounded 220 on Wednesday, and an operations room had been set up in the city, 390km (240 miles) north of Baghdad.
US military commanders say al-Qaeda, blamed for most big bombings in Iraq, has regrouped in the northern provinces after being squeezed out of western Anbar province and from around Baghdad during security crackdowns last year.
They describe Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, as al-Qaeda's last major urban stronghold in Iraq.
"We have set up an operations room in Nineveh to complete the final battle with al-Qaeda along with guerrillas and members of the previous regime," Mr Maliki said, referring to other Sunni militants the Shia-led government says remain loyal to former leader Saddam Hussein.
"Today our forces started moving to Mosul. What we are planning in Nineveh will be decisive," he said during a ceremony for victims of violence in the holy Shia city of Kerbala in southern Iraq, broadcast on state television.
Mr Maliki gave no details of the number of Iraqi troops involved or the scale of the operation. Defence ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari did not have details but said it had been launched at Mr Maliki's request.
"Security is very weak there and the security forces need to be reinforced," said Mr Askari.
Iraqi interior ministry spokesman Maj-Gen Abdul-Kareem Khalaf said the Mosul push would include 3,000 extra police. Iraqi security officials in the city said no reinforcements had arrived yet.
The US military calls al-Qaeda in Iraq the biggest threat to the country's security. It said this week that al-Qaeda militants killed 3,870 civilians and wounded almost 18,000 in 4,500 attacks last year.
"We defeated al-Qaeda, now there is just Nineveh province where they escaped to, and Kirkuk," Mr Maliki said, referring to another northern city.
During his trip to Kerbala, Mr Maliki met Sheikh Abdul Mehdi al-Karbalai, a representative of Iraq's top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sheikh Karbalai was lightly wounded in a bomb attack in the city late on Thursday.
Mr Maliki called the bombing a "criminal act".
US military commanders say al-Qaeda's influence in its former strongholds has been greatly diminished but that it remains a dangerous enemy in Mosul and other northern areas.