Trouble In The North

A police chief in the Iraqi city of Mosul has died in an ambush, as he visited the site of a bombing that killed around three dozen civilians. Mosul's suffered an increase in violence over the last year, just as the security situation has improved further south, in and around Baghdad.

In one way, the problems in Mosul (which is ethnically mixed) prove the partial success of the US troop surge. As more American forces have moved into the area around Baghdad, insurgents and militiamen have had to head out, and head north. We generally hear less about violent incidents that happen away from Baghdad, largely because of a lack of pictures to illustrate the stories on the TV news. But the bombings and attacks are still taking place, as these events in Mosul show. Although there's no doubt the surge has made things better in much of Iraq, it's a long way from being the solution to all of the country's security problems.