The battle for Mosul update

There's not much reporting on the battle for Mosul. Luckily, Bill Roggio and Michael Yon are there. That's probably the two most reliable Iraq war reporters we have, so we're okay.

To start off with, Bill Roggio at The Long War Journal reports on the Targeting Mosul’s kidnappers

• MOSUL, IRAQ: As al Qaeda and allied extremist groups attempt to regroup in the northern city of Mosul, kidnappings inside the city have spiked in the past week. Six Iraqis have been kidnapped in the last six days. The latest victim was a Muslim sheikh.

After that, check out Michael Yon's reporting from Mosul in his dispatch titled Guitar Heroes. This is another great eye opening piece by Yon that you must read. Man, I'm glad he got up there to bring us this stuff.

• Men crept in darkness to plant a bomb. They moved in an area where last year I was helping to collect fallen American soldiers from the battlefield.

  Terrorists. The ones who murder children in front of their parents. The ones who take drugs and rape women and boys. The ones who blow up schools. The ones who have been forcibly evicted from places like Anbar Province, Baghdad and Baqubah by American and Iraqi forces. Terrorists are here now in Mosul. They call themselves al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). AQI cannot win without Baghdad, and cannot survive without Mosul. The Battle for Mosul is evolving into AQI’s last great stand.

Both are must reads, actually. We got lucky and have the best two on hand covering Al Qaeda's last stand in Iraq. About the time it's over, the major news networks will discover it and send people to look into it but we will have already followed the Roggio and Yon reporting so, once again, we will be months ahead on the situation.