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Tikrit/ISIS update..Iraq retakes half of Tikrit from ISIL
PressTV-Iraq retakes half of Tikrit from ISIL
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Iraqi Army Assault During Heavy Fighting In Tikrit
The Iraqi army together with volunteer forces have regained half of the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit from the ISIL Takfiri militants following heavy firefight in the strategic city, an Iraqi police colonel says.
“We are surrounding the gunmen in the city center,” the colonel, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, said on Friday.
“We’re advancing slowly due to the great number of IEDs (improvised explosive devices),” the Iraqi colonel said, adding, “We estimate there are 10,000 IEDs in the city.”
Press TV’s correspondent (pictured below) near the strategic city also confirmed that the Iraqi forces and the Shia and Sunni volunteers have liberated half of Tikrit. She said Takfiri militants are mainly holed up in the city center.
She also reported that Iraqi tanks are pounding the area under control of terrorists.
According to the correspondent, two snipers of Saudi nationality were killed in the southern part of the city.
Advances in the northern area of the city especially in the al-Qadesiyeh area are reportedly slow because of the presence and activities of many Takfirs snipers there.
Heavy clashes are also under way around the University of Tikrit, where operation at the direction of the center of the city is set to start.
Fatah and Hawija areas are reportedly the scene of heavy clashes as well.
On Thursday, the Iraqi security forces recaptured the presidential palace’s complex, the industrial neighborhood as well as general and military hospitals in Tikrit.
This is while the ISIL terrorists continue to use explosive-laden cars to target the Iraqi army’s line of defense in a bid to slow down its advances.
Meanwhile, Iraqi officials said the ISIL group is killing its wounded members because it cannot treat the injured terrorists.
Earlier this month, some 30,000 Iraqi troops started large-scale operations to recapture Tikrit, which is the birthplace of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The volunteer forces, which include both Shia and Sunni members, have also joined the operation.
Located some 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad, Tikrit was overrun by the ISIL terrorists in the summer of 2014 along with Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, and other areas in the Arab country’s Sunni heartland.
Tikrit has a strategic position as it sits on the road to the ISIL stronghold, Mosul.
The ISIL terrorists, many of whom were initially trained by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria. They have been engaged in crimes against humanity in the areas under their control.
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The deputy head of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has criticized the United States,
Israel and certain regional Arab governments for creating and sponsoring the ISIL Takfiri militants.
“We hear the world wants to confront ISIS because it represents Takfiri terrorism. Who created ISIL? Those who want to fight [them] are the ones who raised and funded ISIS,” the Daily Star quoted Sheikh Naim Qassem as saying in a statement on Friday.
He further noted that the US has been providing the Takfiri militants with weapons and training “starting from Afghanistan all the way to Syria and Iraq.”
The official also slammed certain regional countries and allies of the US for supporting the Takfiri militants in order for the terrorist group to carry out “acts of sabotage in their name and on behalf of America.”
Sheikh Qassem also lashed out at the Tel Aviv regime for backing the ISIL Takfiri militants, saying, “Israel opened hospitals [to ISIl casualties]; and contact between Takfiris in Syria’s Quneitra and Israel is constantly ongoing, uninterrupted, because they are part of this scheme.”
Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2015/03/tikritisis-updateiraq-retakes-half-of.html
