Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki returned to Baghdad on Saturday after spending several days in the city of Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province to supervise the crackdown.
Many gunmen from Sunni Islamist al Qaeda have regrouped in Nineveh after being pushed out of other areas. The U.S. military says Mosul is al Qaeda's last major urban stronghold in Iraq.
Lieutenant-General Riyadh Jalal Tawfiq, head of the Iraqi-led offensive that began a week ago, said 1,068 suspects had been detained so far.
"This operation will last until we finish off all the terrorist remnants and outlaws," he said.
On Friday, Maliki said fighters who handed in their weapons within 10 days would be given an amnesty and unspecified cash rewards. His offer applies to gunmen who have not killed anyone.
Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Mohammed al-Askari said scores of militants had already handed over their guns.
With over a thousand suspects held, clearly most of these are sympathizers or part of the support structure and not terrorists. By picking them up the government makes sure these people know that they are on the government's list and this could persuade some to just give up and provide useful information to go after the terrorists themselves.
And much like the Baghdad surge operations, the operation has to stop the terrorists outside of Mosul who move toward Mosul:
Police and soldiers have raided some towns on the Syrian border, where many foreign al Qaeda fighters enter Iraq, as part of the operation and turned over some suspects to U.S. forces.
The story doesn't indicate whether operations in Mosul are providing the intelligence to identify the towns and locations in the towns where the raids took place. Nor does it say if the border town raids have provided information to help the Mosul operations.
The Syrians are still funneling men and material into Iraq and this supply line must be cut off to really secure Mosul.
