In the morning, the Iraqi army and police forces, backed by thousands of allied Shiite and Sunni militias, tried to enter the outer neighborhoods of Tikrit, from the south, west and north, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The offensive was supported by dozens of tanks, armored vehicles, heavy artillery shelling and Iraqi aircraft, the source said.
However, hours of heavy clashes with the IS militants slowed the troops, forcing them to defuse hundreds of landmines, roadside bombs and booby-trapped buildings planted by the IS group, the source said.
As the battles broke out in the morning, the extremist militants blew up a bridge on the Tigris River, which links the city with the adjacent town of al-Alam, the source added.
Al-Alam, just east of Tikrit, was freed from the IS militants late on Monday, after Iraqi troops recaptured several outside villages from the extremist militants. Overnight the troops ended the last pockets of resistance inside al-Alam.
For the past few days, the city has been under siege by Iraqi forces which continued their heavy bombardment on IS positions inside the city, the source said.
Some 30,000 Iraqi troops and thousands of allied Shiite and Sunni militias have been involved in a week-long offensive to recapture Tikrit and other key towns and villages in northern part of the province from IS militants.
Large parts of Salahudin province have been under IS control since June 2014 after bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and the IS group.
The militant group has taken control of the country's northern city of Mosul and later seized swathes of territories in Nineveh and other predominantly Sunni provinces.
Xinhua
china.org.cn
11/3/15
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Former CIA chief Michael Hayden said Tuesday he was “uncomfortable” with Iran’s growing influence in Iraq, made especially evident by an offensive in Tikrit...
ReplyDeleteThe city, which is the home town of former president Saddam Hussein, is the target of as assault led by Iraqi troops and Shiite militias backed by Tehran.
“I am made uncomfortable by the growing Iranian influence in Iraq. I am made uncomfortable by the fact that it looked like a Shia advance against a Sunni town,” said Hayden, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency between 2006 and 2009.
“And the proof would be what happens if and when they retake Tikrit ... How the militias act toward the local population,” he added, during a roundtable on international intelligence sharing at the New America Foundation.
Hayden said the United States should not be sharing intelligence with the Iranians on Iraq, despite their shared desire to wipe out the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“The Islamic Republic’s ultimate objective is different,” he explained.
“We are looking for an inclusive government with minority rights and the participation of all the major religious and ethnic groups.
“It’s clear to me that the Iranian policy is based upon Shia dominance of the new Iraqi state, and that effort in itself feeds the Sunni opposition, which ISIL [ISIS] then lives off of to resurrect their movement,” Hayden added, using an alternative acronym for ISIS.
Some 30,000 men have been involved in a week-old operation to recapture Tikrit, one of the ISIS fighters’ main hubs since they overran large parts of Iraq nine months ago.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/03/11/Ex-CIA-chief-uncomfortable-with-Iran-role-in-Iraq-.html
11/3/15