Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses. Share this article with your facebook friends

 

Iraqi Offensive on Tikrit on Hold Due to Fierce Resistance from Islamic State Fighters

March 16, 2015 

 

Iraqi army soldiers in Al-Alam town, near Tikrit	raqi army soldiers in Al-Alam town, near Tikrit

 

US-Led coalition launcher seven air strikes on the Islamic State sites in Iraq and Syria on Saturday, March 14, 2015, including sites in Assad, Huaija, Qaem, Fallouja, Ramadi, and Tala'afar.

قال الجيش الأمريكي إن الولايات المتحدة وشركاءها في التحالف نفذوا سبع ضربات جوية ضد تنظيم الدولة الإسلامية في العراق وأربع ضربات في سوريا منذ يوم السبت. وقالت قوة المهام المشتركة في بيان ،اليوم الأحد، إن الغارات في العراق أصابت وحدات تكتيكية للدولة الإسلامية وعربات وآلات حفر وكانت قرب مناطق الأسد والحويجة والقائم والفلوجة والرمادي وتلعفر. وأضاف البيان أن الضربات الجوية في سوريا تركزت قرب مدينة كوباني عند الحدود مع تركيا ودمرت تسع مواقع قتالية للدولة الإسلامية وعربة. يقين+رويترز ع.ش http://www.yaqen.net/news.php?action=view&id=30695

 

Iraqi forces struggle to retake Tikrit from IS group

France 24, 2015-03-16

Iraqi forces need support from coalition air strikes in Tikrit, where (Islamic State fighters) are defending their last redoubt with trenches, sandbags and roadside bombs, a top officer said on Sunday.

Two weeks into Baghdad's biggest operation yet against the Islamic State (IS) group, Iraqi forces have a complete stranglehold on the city but have yet to launch a final assault.

Staff Lieutenant General Abdulwahab al-Saadi said he had asked the defence ministry to request coalition involvement, but "no air support" from foreign allies had yet been provided in Tikrit.

That assertion is supported by daily statements from the coalition that have not mentioned strikes in the area.

Asked if US-led coalition air strikes would help, Saadi said: "Of course... the Americans have advanced equipment, they have AWACS (surveillance) aircraft."

IS group ‘may have seized chlorine’ to use as weapon

The Islamic State group in Tikrit may have obtained chlorine for possible use as a chemical weapon, a local official said Sunday.

Laith al-Jubouri, mayor of al-Alam on the northern edge of Tikrit, told Reuters that storage containers filled with chlorine were found by Iraqi troops and mainly Shiite militiamen when they entered the town last week, the day before they fought their way into Tikrit.

“We found a number of storage units containing chlorine that we think were seized by Daesh from water purification stations in different parts of Tikrit,” Laith al-Jubouri said, using the Arabic acronym for the IS group.

He also said the security forces had found bombs containing chlorine.

It follows claims by Iraqi Kurdish authorities on Saturday that they had proof the radical Islamist militant group had used chlorine against Kurdish peshmerga fighters in January in a car bombing attempt west of the city of Mosul.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

"They are able to locate the targets exactly" and carry out accurate strikes, he told AFP in an interview at Tikrit University on the northern edge of the city.

"With the advanced technology of the aircraft and weapons they have, of course (strikes) by them are necessary," Saadi said.

Saadi said that support from the Iraqi air force had been "limited".

Fighters from the Imam Ali Brigades, a Shiite militia involved in the Tikrit operation, complained to AFP that a Sukhoi jet had even bombed pro-government forces by mistake.

Since IS fighters took the city in June 2014, they have planted bombs underneath every road, according to residents who fled Tikrit.

One police officer gave an estimate of 10,000 IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in Tikrit, making any military advance perilous.

"We are reinforcing our offensive capacities in the areas we have cleared and reinforcing our control on the entrances to the city," an army major general said Sunday.

"IS is putting up sandbags and digging trenches," he said.

Saadi said that while there were enough personnel trained in explosives disposal, there is a shortage of the equipment they need to carry out the task.

Karim al-Nuri, a spokesman for the volunteer Popular Mobilisation units, said on Saturday that he expected Tikrit to be liberated within 72 hours.

Iran involvement

But the Iraqi army was less upbeat, with officers saying it could be days or even up to two weeks before the city is retaken.

Saadi said he thought the reason there had been no coalition air strikes in support of the Tikrit operation was political, not military.

Shiite Iran has been Baghdad's main foreign partner in the operation and Tehran's top commander in charge of external operations, Qassem Soleimani, has been present on the front lines in several battles against IS.

Officials in Washington have expressed unease at the level of Iranian involvement in Tikrit, an overwhelmingly Sunni city which was executed dictator Saddam Hussein's home town.

Coalition air strikes have supported several other operations to reclaim jihadist-held territory in Iraq in recent months, including some in which Iran-backed Shiite militias were involved.

Iraqi security forces, backed by Shiite volunteers and militias, and in some cases Sunni tribesmen opposed to IS, have in recent months been working their way north.

In October, they retook Jurf al-Sakhr, one of the southernmost areas to have been captured by IS, and have since also reclaimed the eastern province of Diyala.

Iranian support was crucial in both operations.

Kurdish peshmerga forces have also been pushing the jihadists back from northern parts of the country, with US-led coalition support.

The last remaining IS stronghold east of the Tigris river is Hawijah, a town northeast of Tikrit, where fleeing jihadists are believed to have gathered and on which Kurdish forces are advancing.

Tikrit is seen by commanders as a key stepping stone on the way to reconquering IS's northern hub of Mosul, Iraq's second city.

The outcome of the battle seems in little doubt but there is more at stake for the government than just territorial gain.

The vast operation is seen as a test of Baghdad's ability to instil discipline in the array of fighting forces involved in the anti-IS war and prevent some of the abuses committed in the past.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the offensive. Tikrit once had an estimated population of 200,000 but it is unclear how many civilians remain in the war-torn city.

Saadi described the advance in Tikrit as "slow and steady", saying that: "We are preserving our units so they do not take unnecessary losses."

(AFP)

Iraq needs more air strikes to dislodge IS in Tikrit: officials

By Maggie Fick

BAGHDAD, Mon Mar 16, 2015 7:23am EDT

BAGHDAD (Reuters) -

Iraq said on Monday it had put its Tikrit offensive on hold and senior officials called for more air strikes to dislodge Islamic State militants who have laid explosives across Saddam Hussein's home city and still hold its central districts.

The offensive, the largest yet against insurgents who swept through northern Iraq in June, has been stalled for four days after Iraqi security forces and mainly Shi'ite militia pushed into Tikrit last week.

They have struggled to gain further ground against the militants who are holed up in a vast complex of palaces built when Saddam was in power.

Military officials in Tikrit said there was no fighting on Monday in the city that was home to more than 250,000 people before it was overrun last year.

Government forces are in control of most of the northern Qadisiya district as well as the southern and western outskirts of the city, trapping the militants in an area bounded by the river that runs through Tikrit. Though Iraqi forces and allied militiamen may have the insurgents in a chokehold, officials are increasingly citing air power as necessary to drive out the remaining insurgents.

"We need air support from any force that can work with us against IS," Deputy Minister of Defence Ibrahim al-Lami told Reuters, declining to say whether he meant from the U.S.-led coalition or Iran, which is playing a role in the assault.

The U.S.-led coalition has been conspicuously absent from the offensive, the biggest to be undertaken by Iraqi forces since Islamic State seized around a third of the country last summer including Tikrit.

Interior Minister Mohammed al-Ghaban said authorities had put a temporary halt to the offensive in Tikrit, capital of the mainly Sunni Muslim Salahuddin province.

"We have decided to halt military operations in Salahuddin in order to reduce casualties among our heroic forces... and to preserve the remaining infrastructure," the minister said at a news conference in the city of Samarra, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad.

"The situation is under control and we will choose the appropriate time to attack the enemy and liberate the area".

KURDISH ADVANCE

More than 20,000 troops and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militia are taking part in the operation, which began two weeks ago, supported by a relatively small contingent of Sunni fighters from Tikrit and the surrounding Salahuddin province.    

The assault is seen as a litmus test for any future attempt to retake the large northern city of Mosul, which is likely to be a far more complex operation.

Meanwhile, coalition air strikes helped Kurdish forces seize the villages of Wahda, Saada, and Khalid from Islamic State in the north - part of a broader week-long offensive to drive the militants away from the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

Shi’ite Turkmen fighters also clashed for a fourth day with Islamic State insurgents near the village of Bashir, south of Kirkuk.

In Baghdad, Special U.S. presidential envoy General John Allen addressed a meeting of Iraqi and foreign officials aimed at kicking off efforts to stabilize and rebuild territories retaken from Islamic State.

The militants have been driven back by Kurdish peshmerga forces in the north, and Shi'ite militia known as Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) in the eastern province of Diyala, the Baghdad belt and north of the capital.

Allen said Iraqis were beginning to recover from life under Islamic State in Diyala and "hopefully soon" in Tikrit, but that local governance would prove difficult because many officials had been killed, were in exile, or co-operated with Islamic State. 

The Prime Minister's spokesman Rafid al-Jaboori echoed calls for more air strikes: "We have been saying we need more air support for all operations," he told Reuters. "We welcome air support for all our campaigns against IS".

Asked by Reuters for his response to the Iraqi appeals, Allen said it would not be appropriate for him to comment.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Saif Hameed in Baghdad, Mustafa Mahmoud in Kirkuk; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Dominic Evans)

 

***

Share this article with your facebook friends