Kirkuk: Iraqi government troops and allied militiamen launched a major operation on Tuesday to retake the city of Tikrit from militants, senior officials said.
“The Iraqi army and [Shiite] volunteers, backed by Iraqi helicopters, are taking part” in the operation to retake the hometown of executed former president Saddam Hussain, a high-ranking army officer told AFP.
The officer said the military push started early in the morning from the south and southwest of the city, which lies around 160km north of Baghdad.
The operation came as militants were kept busy on other fronts further north, where resurgent Kurdish Pershmerga forces, buoyed by Western arms deliveries and US airstrikes, have gone on the offensive.
Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), who had already occupied parts of Syria, launched an offensive in Iraq on June 9 and soon took over much of the country’s Sunni heartland.
Tikrit fell on June 11 and has since been controlled mostly by militant groups, including former members of Saddam’s ruling Baath party.
Iraqi government forces, who abandoned their positions offering little to no resistance when militants swept across five provinces more than two months ago, have made Tikrit one of the main targets of their fightback.
The army, with the support of Shiite volunteers, has tried and failed twice to take back Tikrit.
