BackClashes near Tikrit as Iraq troops launch fightback
Security forces were coordinating with the US; drones flew over Baghdad to provide protection for the advisers and US diplomats
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Baghdad: Iraqi forces pressed a campaign on Saturday to retake militant-held Tikrit, clashing with jihadist-led Sunni militants nearby and pounding positions inside the city with air strikes in their biggest counter-offensive so far.
A senior officer said security forces were coordinating with the US, which has deployed military advisers to help the government push back the militants, who have overrun large parts of five provinces north and west of Baghdad.
Armed US drones were flying over Baghdad to provide protection for the advisers and US diplomats against the militants, led by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is revered among Iraq’s majority community, has urged political leaders to unite and form a new government within days to tackle the crisis.
Saudi King Abdullah pledged in talks with US secretary of state John Kerry to use his influence to encourage Sunni Muslims to join a new, more inclusive Iraqi government to better combat an Islamist insurgency, Reuters reported quoting a senior US official. Abdullah’s assurance marked a significant shift from Riyadh’s insistence on the removal of Iraqi Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki, a Shi’ite Muslim.
The US official said the Saudi monarch voiced deep concern to Kerry about the ISIL insurgents who have overrun much of northern Iraq and its border with Syria and thrust southward, approaching the Saudi frontier.
“It was clear that the two shared a view that all of Iraq’s community should be participating on an urgent basis in the political process to allow it to move forward, and that each—both the secretary and King Abdullah in their conversations with Iraqi leaders—would convey that message directly to them," the US state department official told reporters after the talks.
International agencies have raised alarm bells over the humanitarian consequences of the fighting, with up to 10,000 people having fled a northern Christian town in recent days and 1.2 million displaced by unrest in Iraq this year.
Thousands of soldiers, backed by air cover, tanks and bomb disposal units, were advancing on Tikrit—now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s hometown—which fell to insurgents on 11 June.
Witnesses said loyalists were moving toward Tikrit from the west and engaged in heavy clashes.
“A large military operation started today to clear Tikrit of ISIL," Staff Lieutenant General Sabah Fatlawi told AFP, saying its fighters now have two choice “flee or be killed."
Helicopter-borne troops swooped into a strategically located university campus in the city on Thursday, with sporadic clashes reported throughout Friday.
Taking the university is seen as an important step towards regaining control of Tikrit, one of the biggest cities held by the militants.
Iraqi forces were carrying out air strikes against insurgents inside the city, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s security spokesman said.
They were also now in full control of a key road from Baghdad to Samarra, between the capital and Tikrit, lieutenant general Qassem Atta added.
There is coordination with the US over “studying important targets," Atta said, without elaborating.
Drones over Baghdad
Although they initially wilted in the face of the offensive in majority Sunni Arab areas that began on 9 June, the security forces have appeared to perform more capably in recent days.
A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said “a few" armed drones were being used over Baghdad as a precaution to safeguard Americans, but they will not be used for offensive action against the militants.
The Pentagon confirmed that among the manned and unmanned US aircraft flying over Iraq to carry out surveillance, some were carrying bombs and missiles.
The US flights come despite Maliki’s insistence on Friday that “Baghdad is safe" from militant assault.
World leaders have insisted that a political settlement be reached among Iraq’s Shiite Arab, Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities.
Sistani urged Iraqi leaders to unite and form a government quickly after the new parliament elected on 30 April convenes on Tuesday.
Maliki, who has publicly focused on a military response to the crisis, has acknowledged that political measures are also necessary.
On Saturday, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said in Damascus that “Russia will not remain passive to the attempts by some groups to spread terrorism in the region."
“The situation is very dangerous in Iraq and the foundations of the Iraqi state are under threat," he said.
Iraq has agreed to purchase more than a dozen Sukhoi warplanes from Russia and Belarus in a deal that could be worth up to $500 million.
US air strikes wanted
Iraq has appealed for US air strikes against the militants, but Washington has offered only up to 300 military advisers.
US official have said a proposed $500 million plan to arm and train moderate rebels in neighbouring Syria could also help Iraq’s fight against ISIL, which operates on both sides of the border.
But amid calls for unity, Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani said Baghdad could no longer object to Kurdish self-rule in Kirkuk and other areas from which federal forces withdrew as the insurgents advanced.
“Now, this (issue)...is achieved," he said, referring to a constitutional article meant to address the Kurds’ decades-old ambition to incorporate more territory into their autonomous northern region, a move Baghdad opposes.
Maliki’s security spokesman has said hundreds of soldiers have been killed since the offensive began on 9 June, while the UN puts the overall death toll at nearly 1,100.
The International Organisation for Migration warned that aid workers could not reach tens of thousands of Iraqis displaced by the violence, and called for humanitarian corridors to be established. AFP
Reuters contributed to this story.
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