Saddam’s town Tikrit falls as militants’ offensive gathers pace

KIRKUK: Militants seized the Iraqi city of Tikrit, on Wednesday, but their assault on Samarra was repulsed as a lightning offensive launched in the country’s second city Mosul swept closer to Baghdad. Since the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) began their spectacular assault in Mosul late on Monday, militants have captured a large swathe of northern and north-central Iraq, prompting as many as half a million people to flee their homes. The speed with which ISIL and its allies have advanced after their seizure on Tuesday of Mosul — a city of two million people — has sent alarm bells ringing not only in Baghdad but in Western capitals. It has also triggered a hostage crisis for Ankara, which is scrambling to secure the release of 48 Turks taken hostage by the militants. In a statement on Twitter, ISIL vowed that it would “not stop this series of blessed invasions” that has seen the fall of the whole of Nineveh province in the north and swathes of Kirkuk and Salaheddin provinces further south. Tikrit — hometown of executed dictator Saddam Hussein — was the second provincial capital to fall in as many days as the militants and their allies captured a string of mainly Sunni Arab towns where resentment against the Shia-led government runs deep. “All of Tikrit is in the hands of the militants,” a police colonel said of the Salaheddin provincial capital, which lies roughly half way between Baghdad and Mosul. A police major said the militants had freed some 300 inmates from a prison there. After Tikrit’s fall, the operation spread down the main highway towards Baghdad, with militants battling security forces on the northern outskirts of Samarra, just 110km from the capital. Iraqiya state television said security forces launched air strikes on them, and witnesses said the clashes ended without the militants entering the city. It was not immediately clear what became of the attackers. Militants had tried to seize the city late last week, and were only halted by a massive deployment of troops, backed by tribal militia and air power. Although Samarra too is mainly Sunni Arab, it is super sensitive for the government as it is home to a shrine revered by the country’s Shia majority. A 2006 bombing of the mausoleum by Al Qaeda sparked a Shia-Sunni sectarian conflict that left tens of thousands dead. In other developments, a series of bombings, including a suicide attack on tribal leaders in Baghdad, killed 37 people in Shia areas of central and southern Iraq, officials said. The lightning advance poses significant challenges to Baghdad, with the New York-based Eurasia Group risk consultancy saying they would be bolstered by cash from Mosul’s banks, hardware from military bases and hundreds of men they freed from prison. Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2014