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Monday 2 March 2015

Iraqi forces launch offensive to drive IS group out of Tikrit

Around 30,000 Iraqi troops and militia, backed by aircraft, targeted Islamic State group positions in and around the city of Tikrit on Monday as part of a larger campaign aimed at driving the extremists our of the country’s Salahuddin province.

The offensive is the biggest military operation in the province since the Islamic State (IS) group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, seized parts of northern Iraq last June and advanced towards the capital.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared the start of the Salahuddin operations on Sunday during a visit to the government-held city of Samarra, where some of the thousands of troops and Shiite militia had gathered for the offensive.

The pace of their progress in Salahuddin could affect plans to recapture Mosul further north. A US official said the assault on Mosul, the largest city under the IS group’s control, could start as early as April but Iraqi officials have declined to confirm that timetable.

In Salahuddin, IS group fighters control several strongholds including Tikrit, hometown of executed former president Saddam Hussein, and other Tigris river towns.

A source at the local military command said forces advanced north from Samarra towards the town of al-Dour, which officials describe as an IS group bastion, and Tikrit, which lies about 40 km (25 miles) north of Samarra.

Iraq’s air force was carrying out strikes in support of the advancing ground forces, which were reinforced by troops and militia, known as Hashid Shaabi or Popular Mobilisation units, from the neighbouring province of Diyala to the east.

Iraqi army forces at a military base just north of Tikrit also bombarded IS group positions in the city, another source said.

Declaring the start of operations on Sunday evening, Abadi gave IS group supporters what he said was one last chance to lay down their arms, or face “the punishment they deserve because they stood with terrorism”.

But he also stressed that the army and militia must protect civilians and property in the battlefield. Shiite militia have been accused of mass executions and burning of homes in areas they have seized from the IS group. Leaders of the paramilitary forces have denied the accusations.

Monday’s offensive follows several failed attempts to drive the militants out of Tikrit since last June, when the IS group declared a caliphate in the territories it controls in eastern Syria and northern and western Iraq.

In Iraq, months of US-led air strikes backed up by the Shiite militias, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iraqi soldiers have contained the IS group and pushed them back from around Baghdad, the Kurdish north, and the eastern province of Diyala.

But they have held most of their strongholds in Salahuddin and taken new territory in the western province of Anbar.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)

http://www.france24.com/en/20150302-iraq-forces-launch-offensive-drive-islamic-state-is-tikrit/
2/3/15
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