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Iraqi forces battle Islamic State in streets of strategic Tikrit Iraqi forces seize control of Tikrit in major battle against Islamic State
(about 5 hours later)
BAGHDAD —The fight for Tikrit moved into the streets Wednesday as Iraqi forces pushed past bomb-laced cordons in attempts to oust Islamic State militants from the strategic gateway city. BAGHDAD —Iraqi forces pushed into one of the Islamic State’s most important strongholds on Wednesday, breaking the militants’ hold on the city of Tikrit in what is shaping up to be a decisive battle for pro-government forces in their fight to eradicate the jihadists.
The clashes marked the first within the city limits since the government launched its offensive to retake the area earlier this month, and they signaled possible gains in the important showdown over the city about 110 miles northwest of Baghdad. The gains by Iraqi troops and allied militia fighters could mark a crucial step in dislodging the Islamic State from other key areas, including the nearby city of Mosul. It was unclear, however, if Iraqi forces would hold their ground in Tikrit. Government troops have struggled to maintain control over recaptured territory in the past.
Regaining Tikrit would give the Iraqi government and its allied fighters — some closely linked to Iran — a key stepping stone in efforts to push farther north into Islamic State-held territory, including the major city of Mosul. Iraqi television showed civilians in towns near Tikrit greeting pro-government forces as they swept throughon their way to the city. Iraqi security officials said later Wednesday that the majority of Tikrit had been freed from Islamic State control, but that battles continued in parts of the city. They said the jihadists had laced Tikrit with improvised explosives designed to slow the government advance. Much of the civilian population had already fled.
Meanwhile, Islamic State fighters struck back on other fronts in Syria and Iraq, carrying out a series of suicide car bombings against Iraqi military positions in the western city of Ramadi. The military offensive includes a combined force of up to 30,000 troops, including a large contingent of Shiite militia fighters backed by Iran. Some officials and rights advocates have raised concerns about the sectarian nature of the operation, and the possibility of retaliatory attacks against the local population, which is mostly Sunni.
Iraqi troops and militias entered Tikrit at 4 a.m. local time, a government spokesman said, after approaching the city from several directions and besieging Islamic State fighters. Tikrit was the site of a massacre of as many as 1,700 Shiite soldiers by Islamic State militantslast summer. Shiite commanders have portrayed the current offensive as revenge for the slaughter, in which some local Sunni tribes also participated. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has controlled the city since last June.
A volunteer force known as Hashd al-Shaabi took control of the Tikrit Military Hospital, the group’s media office said. Pro-government forces clashed with Islamic State militants elsewhere in Tikrit, including in the city’s largest neighborhood, Qadisiya. In Washington, the Obama administration hailed the Tikrit operation as proof that its broader strategy in the region was working. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the Islamic State had now been pushed out of 25 percent of the territory that its fighters took last spring and summer in Iraq. He apparently was also referring to defeats suffered by the extremist Sunni combatants in Diyala province, just northeast of Baghdad, and in Kurdish areas near Mosul in northern Iraq.
The jihadists have planted thousands of improvised explosive devices seeking to slow the advance of Iraqi troops, security officials said. But the absence of U.S. warplanes in the Tikrit offensive appeared to expose rifts in the U.S.-Iraqi alliance. Iraqi officials have suggested that American air power was not necessary in the offensive, which began on March 1.
On Tuesday, militants also destroyed a bridge linking Tikrit to its northern suburbs, hampering Iraqi military efforts to recapture the city. American planes have been striking Islamic State targets elsewhere in the country. The United States is also helping train Iraqi military units, and has deployed about 300 advisers to the al-Asad airbase in western Anbar province.
Still, government-led forces appeared to maintain momentum. In June, the Islamic State seized Tikrit — the home town and power base of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein — after a stunning offensive across most of northern Iraq. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged Wednesday that Iranian-backed Shiite militia forces “dramatically” outnumbered Iraqi military and Sunni volunteer forces participating in the Tikrit operation. He said the pro-government side included about 1,000 Sunni tribal members, a brigade of 3,000 Iraqi troops, several hundred Iraqi military counter-terror forces, and “approximately 20,000 of the popular mobilization force, which are the Shia militia.”
The offensive to rout the militants from Tikrit, announced March 1, includes a combined force of tens of thousands of troops and predominantly Shiite militias, backed by Iran. Dempsey, speaking in congressional testimony, said that Iranian participation in Iraq was “a positive thing in military terms against ISIL.” But, he said, “we are all concerned about what happens after the drums stop beating and ISIL is defeated, and whether the government of Iraq will remain on a path to provide an inclusive government for all of the groups within it. We’re very concerned about that.”
U.S. warplanes have been noticeably absent from the operations, despite striking Islamic State targets elsewhere in Iraq. Iraqi officials have suggested that U.S. air power is not necessary to dislodge the militants from Tikrit, raising questions over the depth of the U.S.-Iraqi alliance to fight the Islamic State. The Tikrit operation, he said, “will be a strategic inflection point one way or the other in terms of easing our concerns or increasing them.”
But in the north, aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition have targeted Islamic State positions during an offensive by Kurdish fighters, known as peshmerga. The operations outside Kirkuk, about 70 miles northeast of Tikrit, have forced militants to retreat to their stronghold in the town of Hawija, Kurdish and Iraqi officials said. Another senior U.S. official expressed concern about the prominent role being played by Iran and its proxies, which he said was especially worrisome to the Gulf Arab allies in the American-led coalition battling the Islamic State.
On Wednesday, a pro-government Sunni fighter from the Tikrit suburb of Alam posted photos on Facebook from inside the town, which was taken by government forces on Tuesday. “They are deeply concerned … that Iran is taking a stab at eliminating our contribution or minimizing it,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters. “There is a concern over the struggle between the United States and Iran for strategic influence and lasting influence.”
Alam is a stronghold of the Sunni Jubbour tribe, which has joined forces with Shiite militias to oust the jihadists from the area in a key test of Sunni-Shiite cooperation. Iraqi forces and militiamen entered Tikrit early Wednesday morning, approaching the city from all four directions, officials said. The fighters secured the largest neighborhood, Qadisiya, in the north, and moved on to clear the city’s industrial quarter, commanders said. Pro-government forces then seized the Tikrit Military Hospital. Iraqi helicopters were striking the militants as they gathered at key points in the city Wednesday night, according to officials.
Many Sunnis — who dominated Iraq under Hussein’s regime — perceive discrimination and a weakened political voice at the hands of Iraqi’s Shiite-led government. Security forces continued to battle the militants Wednesday night on the edges of the vast presidential palace complex, which the jihadists have used as a base.
In Abu Ajeel, a village east of Tikrit, Shiite gunmen torched the homes of Sunni residents, underscoring sectarian tensions. “Ninety percent of Tikrit has been liberated, but we are still fighting near the presidential palaces and in areas in the east,” said Emad al-Zahary, head of military operations in the nearby city of Samarra.
“Thank God, al-Alam is doing excellent,” the Sunni fighter, Omar al-Jebbara, wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday. A spokesman for the Shiite militia Asaib ahl al-Haq also said his men were engaged in clashes with the jihadists outside the complex on Wednesday.
Jebbara posted images of himself inside the town, including one of him kneeling next to the grave of a female member of the tribe, Oumaya al-Jebbara, who died fighting the Islamic State in Alam last summer. Jebbara said pro-government forces have erected their own checkpoints in Alam. Tikrit, about 115 miles north of Baghdad, was the hometown of former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, and many of his former lieutenants joined the Islamic State. Hussein long favored his fellow Sunnis over the country’s Shiite majority. After a Shiite-led government came to power in the wake of the U.S. invasion in 2003, then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki implemented sectarian policies that turned Sunni communities into breeding grounds of support for Islamic State militants.
But in western Iraq, Islamic State fighters remained on the offensive Wednesday. Local officials said the militants detonated as many as seven car bombs — and possibly more — in apparently coordinated attacks in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. It’s likely Iraqi forces, even if they hold Tikrit, will face a prolonged insurgency in the area, analysts say. That will have implications for operations to retake Mosul, a city of about a million people still under the control of the Islamic State.
About 300 U.S. military advisers are stationed at the al-Asad airbase, also in Anbar. For months, government troops have been mired in seesaw battles with Sunni militants in areas of Anbar province, as well as the oil refinery town of Bayji, which is close to Tikrit. Iraqi forces seized Bayji in in November, but later ceded ground when the jihadists mounted a successful counteroffensive.
In Syria, Islamic State militants opened an offensive against the predominantly Kurdish town of Ras al-Ayn on the Syrian-Turkish border, the Associated Press reported, citing a Kurdish official and an activist group. On Wednesday, the Islamic State targeted the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi with multiple car bombs at key government installations, demonstrating the militants’ reach.
Kurdish Democratic Union Party spokesman Nawaf Khalil described the Islamic State’s attack as “wide-scale and powerful.” Iraqi security expert Safa al-Asam said that pro-government forces were not trained for urban warfare and ran the risk of getting bogged down in a guerrilla-style conflict with the militants in Tikrit.
Mustafa Salim in Baghdad and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report. If the Shiite militias also stay on to fight the militants, their presence could increase tension with local Sunni tribes.
“If they stay in Tikrit, there will be major problems,” Iraqi analyst Hisham al-Hashimi said. “I believe there will be assassinations and human rights violations. They will not leave land they liberated with their own blood.”
Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung in Washington and Mustafa Salim in Baghdad contributed to this report.
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