BAGHDAD Iraqi army, backed by civilian volunteers, entered the strategic city of Tikrit from multiple directions on Wednesday, breaching one of the biggest strongholds of the extremists.
According to reports, the streets of Tikrit have been covered with dead bodies of the Daish or ISIS rebels. Some of the rebels were killed by the Iraqi forces, while others were executed by their fellow militants for fleeing the battle.
In a statement, the Tikrit tribesman have announced that they too are participating in the fight to push out the Takfiris from Tikrit.
Iraqi forces have also reportedly took control of the al-Qadisiyah neighborhood from ISIS. The rebels who rampaged through the cities last year are now besieged in the center of the city, reports said.
Explosions and heavy gunfire could be heard as allied Iraqi forces entered the city through its northern Qadisiyya neighborhood, according to video obtained by The Associated Press. Overhead, an attack helicopter fired missiles as soldiers and militiamen laid down heavy machine gunfire in the neighborhood’s dusty streets as downtown Tikrit loomed in the distance, black smoke rising overhead.
Officials quickly established a supply line to reinforce troops, Salahuddin police Brig. Kheyon Rasheed told the state-run Iraqiyya television.
“The terrorists are seizing the cars of civilians trying to leave the city and they are trying to make a getaway,” Rasheed said. Authorities offered no immediate casualty figures, though Iran’s English-language Press TV satellite channel reported that a mortar attack wounded one of its cameramen there.
The ISIS group holds about a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in its self-declared caliphate. Tikrit, the capital of Salahuddin province about 130 kilometers north of Baghdad, is one of the largest cities held by rebels and lies on the road connecting Baghdad to Mosul. Retaking it will give Iraqi forces a major supply link to retake Mosul. Tikrit has also symbolic value as it is the birth place of fallen dictator Saddam Hussein.
On Tuesday, Iraqi forces retook the town of Alam on the outskirts of Tikrit. They also sealed off Tikrit to prepare for an offensive inside the city. Hidden bombs and snipers had slowed the troops’ progress.
Iraqi government officials touted the high morale of Iraqi security forces going into the Tikrit operation, particularly after liberating Beiji, home to Iraq’s largest refinery, in November. Iranian military advisers have been helping guide Iraqi forces in their advance on Tikrit. Among those directing operations is Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force.
Frontline images have emerged of the general in recent days, showing him smiling and marching alongside tanks and ground troops in plainclothes without a bulletproof vest.
The U.S. says its allied coalition carrying out airstrikes targeting the extremists has not been involved in the ongoing Tikrit offensive. Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has appealed for more aid for his country’s beleaguered ground forces, which have struggled to regain territory from the ISIS group despite seven months of U.S.-led coalition air raids.
Meanwhile, violence continued elsewhere in Iraq. A car bomb exploded near a clinic in a Shia neighborhood in northern Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding 18, said police and hospital officials.
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