Iraqi government forces are advancing to retake Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, from Islamic State (IS) fighters, but they’ve been held back by heavy fire from the jihadists.
Tikrit, 130 miles north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, was seized by Sunni IS militants on June 11. Since then, it has been controlled by IS forces and members of Hussein’s Ba’ath party, the Guardianreports.
The Shia-dominated Iraqi troops clashed with IS fighters on Tuesday in the southwest suburbs of Tirkit, six miles outside the city, Al Jazeera reports. Heavy fighting involving IS snipers, roadside bombs and landmines halted the Iraqi advance from the south towards Tikrit.
"There's a real risk of this becoming a Sunni-Shia war, because the Iraqi army now is dominated by Shia and they're getting the support of Shia militias," Al Jazeera reports.
Despite the push by Iraqi forces, residents of Tikrit told Reuters that IS forces were still in control on Tuesday.
"There are still a lot of challenges and difficulties ahead of us," Lt Gen Qassim al-Moussawi, a spokesman for the Iraqi Army, said. "The war needs time, but we are determined to annihilate the Islamic State and to liberate all the areas they occupy even if we suffer heavy casualties, because we have no other choice."
U.S. airstrikes and drones helped the Kurdish peshmerga forces take back control of the Mosul Dam on Monday after several days of fighting, CNN reports. IS fighters control territory across northern Iraq and Syria but their loss of the Mosul Dam is a strategic defeat.
Two previous attempts to take Tikrit, the capital of Salaheddin province in northern Iraq, have failed, Deutsche-Welle reports.
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